“Top Gun Maverick” flew to the top of the box office charts in South Korea over the weekend, with a supersonic $9.6 million opening loop. It replaced “The Witch: Part 2 The Other One,” which had been top dog for only a week.
Tom Cruise, a regular visitor to Korea, jetted into Seoul with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and co-stars Miles Teller, Glen Powell and Greg Tarzan Davis to goose the movie’s takeoff in the country. Cruise professed himself grateful for the fan’s warm reception and talked up the importance of in-person visits to the cinema.
Sub-distributed in Korea by Lotte Entertainment, the film opened on Wednesday and played on more than 1,900 screens. Data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic), showed that the film achieved a 57% share of the market over the weekend and a $12.9 million cumulative over five days.
The national aggregate over the weekend was $16.9 million, essentially unchanged from the previous weekend’s $17.0 million. The Korean box office burst back into life at the beginning of May when COVID-19 restrictions were largely removed. And the latest figures put June on course to be the highest grossing month of the year so far.
“The Witch: Part 2 The Other One” dropped 60% week-on-week with a second weekend score of $3.32 million for a 20% market share. After 12 days, it has accumulated $18.0 million.
“The Roundup,” the popular crime action film starring Don Lee, continued to play strongly. In its sixth weekend on release, the film held on to third place with a 16% market share and $2.63 million. Its cumulative total now runs to $96.6 million.
A long way behind the top three films, “Lightyear” earned $373,000 in fourth place. Its cumulative is $2.33 million.
“Broker” also declined steeply. It earned $354,000 in its third week of release and took fifth place. Its cumulative total stands at $9.43 million since release on June 8, 2022.