'Peninsula' Rules South Korean Box Office
With the coronavirus mostly under control in South Korea, movie theaters in the Asian country have already reopened, albeit with restrictions and safety measures in place. And ruling the South Korean box office for the second week in a row is Train to Busan sequel, Peninsula.
Variety reports that Peninsula earned $4.49 million over the weekend, making it the highest-grossing movie for the second week in a row in South Korea and bringing its total box office gross to $21 million. During its first week, the movie brought in $9.92 million.
Another staggering achievement for the South Korean zombie movie is that it accounted for 81 percent of South Korea’s nationwide box office. Last week, the movie made up 93 percent of the country’s box office.
Just like in other countries that have reopened theaters, re-releases made up the rest of the box office’s top ten. Disney’s re-released animated movie Aladdin, placed second for the week, while the month-old Korean film #Alive came in third. Charlize Theron-starrer Bombshell was in fourth place while rounding up the rest of the top ten were foreign films like Une Sirene A Paris, Only, Blue Hour, and Better Days.
The Hollywood Reporter, also, notes that Peninsula performed well in other Asian markets as well. The film earned $4.7 million in Taiwan and $4.1 million in Malaysia. Peninsula also performed well in IMAX theaters all over Asia. In South Korea, it earned $365,000 from 18 IMAX theaters. In Taiwan, it earned $310,000 from 10 IMAX theaters.
South Korea isn’t the only film market that is reopening as they have gotten the coronavirus under control. Last July 20, China reopened theaters in low-risk areas after the country managed to take its number of coronavirus infections.
Even then, the road to Chinese theaters reopening was a circuitous one, often postponed and moved to another date. The first date set for reopening was in March, but that was quickly scuttered as officials feared a second outbreak of the coronavirus.
The reopening date was moved to May 8, but that was also canceled after an outbreak occurred at a food processing plant. The next date set was on June 11, but that ultimately did not push through.
Movie theaters reopening in other countries is very important for the film industry, as it could stem from the huge financial loss it has already suffered due to closures brought about by the pandemic. It is estimated that the global film industry will lose $5 billion because of the closure of movie theaters in important markets like South Korea and Japan.
How quickly the rest of the world’s movie theaters will reopen is still up for debate, as numbers for the global coronavirus pandemic continue to rise. The World Health Organization’s situation report for July 26 pegs the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 15,785,641 people worldwide. People that have died from COVID-19 now number at 640,016.