Korea Box Office: ‘Alienoid 2’ Takes Top Spot on Opening Weekend

Patrick Frater
·3 min read
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Sci-fi fantasy comedy “Alienoid 2” opened on top of the South Korean box office with $3.57 million on a weekend that otherwise saw five animation titles and a political documentary in the top ten.

The big-budget, time-traveling “Alienoid 2” earned $3.57 million between Friday and Sunday with a market share of 39% and $4.77 million over its opening five days, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council. Imax reports that some $370,000 of the film’s total was earned from 24 Imax screens.

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The film was made as a two-parter. The first instalment of “Alienoid” was one of the biggest flops of 2022. It opened with a $5.19 million weekend in July that year. But it suffered terrible reviews and word of mouth and finished with just $12.2 million. Director Choi Dong-hoon has recently spent several weeks pushing the message that the second part is better than the first.

Its opening performance was enough to push last week’s winner, U.S. animation, “Wish” into second place. It earned $1.58 million, a drop of $52% compared with its opening weekend. After 12 days on release in Korea, “Wish” has a cumulative of $7.25 million.

Historical-political thriller “12.12: The Day” took a 48% week-on-week drop for a weekend of $1.03 million. But that was good enough to keep it in third place and advance its cumulative total to $94.6 million.

“Noryang Deadly Sea,” which had been the Christmas and New Year chart leader, dropped 55% week-on-week and recorded $894,000 in fourth place. Since releasing on Dec. 20, 2023, it has built a total of $32.8 million.

Illumination Entertainment’s U.S. animation film “Migration” opened in fifth place with $722,000 over the weekend. It earned $994,000 over its opening five days.

Current Japanese animation “New Dimension! Crayon Shinchan the Movie: Battle of Supernatural Powers – Flying Sushi” took sixth place in its fourth weekend with $310,000. It now has $6.04 million.

Political documentary, “Kim Dae Jung On the Road” opened on Jan. 10 and earned $196,000 over the weekend and $429,000 over its opening five days. Kim was Korea’s 15th president and a Nobel Peace Prize-winner.

Japanese live action drama “Monster” continued its run with $112,000 over the weekend. Since releasing on Nov. 29, 2023, it has accumulated $3.42 million.

Positions nine and ten in the chart were taken by Japanese animation films that were both hits in the first part of 2023. “The First Slam Dunk” took $107,000 over the latest weekend to extend its total to $38.5 million. “Suzume” took $96,000 to add to the $43 million it earned in Korea last year.

Aggregate weekend taking were $9.11 million, little changed from the previous session’s$9.22 million total.

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