Action thriller, “Deliver Us From Evil” had a $10.6 million opening weekend in South Korean cinemas, lifting the country’s overall box office by 75%.
The film, directed by Hong Won-chan (“Office”) and starring Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae, was released on Wednesday and ran off with a $15.0 million total over five days. Measured by admissions, 1.39 million people bought tickets to the film over the weekend, and more than 2 million people were willing to brave anti-coronavirus restrictions between Wednesday and Sunday.
The film’s weekend score was achieved from 1,997 screens and accounted for 78% of the total market. Distribution is handled by CJ Entertainment.
The aggregate nationwide box office leaped from $7.68 million to $13.4 million, with two other local titles claiming top three spots. That stands in contrast with the mainland China market where box office has plateaued at $17 million for the past two weekends, and where there has yet to be a supply of strong new local titles.
Last week’s Korean box office winner “Steel Rain 2: Summit” slipped to second place and saw its score drop by 70% to $1.48 million. Its cumulative after 12 days is now $10.7 million.
Falling to third place, “Peninsula” earned $746,000 over the weekend, a decline of $67%. Its cumulative total, since a July 15 outing, is now $27.0 million. Including figures from the other half dozen Asian territories where it has also been released, its global cumulative is over $40 million.
Multinational animation, “Animal Crackers” was released on Wednesday and opened its account in fourth place. It earned $362,000 over the weekend and $516,000 over five days, earned from 77,000 ticket sales.
Below the top four, no other film accounted for more than 1% market share. Re-release, “Aladdin” in fifth place earned $92,000 to push its lifetime score to over $91 million. Chinese animation, “Happy Little Submarine: Space Pals” grabbed a further $75,000 for a six weekend cumulative of $439,000. Lower places were filled by “Beauty and the Beast,” “Better Days” “Onward” and “Bombshell.”