Rsyu

so my friend went to an early screening for "Operation Chromite" and apparently, it's pretty terrible. I don't think even Liam Neeson can stop this from bombing.

official release for now you see me 2 is today (13th) so it's pretty impressive that it's already pulled in 300K admissions.

I remember wanting to see this on a big screen but failed to find any showings. I had to satisfy myself with a tiny one near home.

South Korea Summer box office 2016 (Foreign release ver.) Okay, so we had a look at some of the biggest tentpoles for Korean films for this year, so I thought I'd do the same for foreign releases. Traditionally, foreign releases haven't done all too well during peak summer box office, with most of the business going to local films. A case could be made I guess for the transformer films but personally I don't think they count since they mostly were released just before the summer season (late June). So considering all that, the foreign release that did the most business in the summer box office was The Dark Knight rises (July 19 release) which amassed 6.4M admissions. While that isn't a bad figure in itself, it has to be noted that it is only the 42nd most attended film of all time. Six of the thirteen 10M admissions Korean films on the other hand, have come from the summer box office season. So if you can catch my drift.... Anyway, on to the analysis at hand Finding Dory (in theatres) So, Finding Nemo is one of the more loved animations in Korea, gaining more acclaim and recognition in the years since its release. The buzz surrounding Finding Dory, while not negative in anyway, doesn't seem to be in the same vein as the prequel though, and it certainly doesn't seem to be mothballing into a WoM powerhouse, which has been a trend of late for WDAS/Pixar films. Still, I imagine it will do well enough to get in to the top10 animated admissions list with a possible finish of late 2m-early 3m admissions. I imagine if the current heat wave continues, more people may be encouraged to go see it. Now You See Me 2 (July 12) The first film did surprisingly well in Korea considering it was an original film with no big-draw actors. It managed 2.7M admissions despite being sandwiched between some tentpole Korean films. The bad RT score notwithstanding, I think this is one of those films that people turn up to watch to have fun, and so I'm optimistic that it will deliver again this year. Competition remains the biggest hurdle, with Train to Busan opening in its second week. Hopefully, it'll be a situation of both films expanding the box office pie so there's enough to go around. Personally I think a similar tally to the original should be considered a success for this film. Jason Bourne (July 27) Bourne Series box office history The Bourne Identity: N/A The Bourne Supremacy: 620,000 The Bourne Ultimatum: 2,052,802 The Bourne Legacy: 1,015,711 Okay, so the Bourne series doesn't have a good track record in Korea. It seemed to be gaining popularity up until Legacy, where it fell down into ignominy. But that one didn't have JASON BOURNE in it so I think we can pass it off as a blip. Jason Bourne is one of the more recognized roles of Matt Damon in Korea and Spy thrillers have recently broken through in a big way in Korea (MI, Kingsman, Spy) so I think this has every chance of doing good business here. Suicide Squad I think this film has the best chance to do the best out of the foreign films this summer. The concept of a good baddie (there's a korean fusion word for this even) is something that is popular in recent Korean culture which probably contributed to films such as Deadpool breaking out. This combined with the immensely popular Joker Character, and well known actors could make this a must-see film among the younger generation especially. I don't see it doing as well as TDK or TDKR, but 3-4M or thereabouts is probably within its limits if it receives good word of mouth. Conclusion: As it stands, I don't see any foreign release breaking the 5M barrier mark unless it becomes a WoM powerhouse. Suicide Squad has an outside chance but it's extremely difficult for foreign films to receive adequate screen time against the tentpole local films. GoTG was a pretty good example of this. Word of mouth was very solid for this film, and being a marvel product, it really should have been a no-brainer to break out. However it was released just one day behind the behemoth Roaring Currents and as a result, started with less than 600 screens and was restricted to finishing with just 1.3M admissions. So yeah, unless it becomes an event film, I think it will be pretty difficult for the above films to break out in a meaningful way.

Biggest multi without a doubt was My love, don't cross that river from 2014. Breakdown (admissions) OD: 8,607 OW (3day): 62,650 final: 4,801,818 OD multi- x558 OW mutli- x76.6

The zombie film is Train to Busan I think, one of the tentpole summer films for this year.

Midday report? They do those now?

Early naver ratings for Finding Dory Audience: 9.50 Netizen: 9.03 critics: 6.17 finding Nemo has a rating of 9.28 on naver

Biggest animated movies in SK: admissions (2003-) 1. 10,279,829 Frozen (2014) 2. 5,062,722 Kung-fu Panda 2 (2011) 3. 4,969,735 Inside Out（2015） 4. 4,703,058 Zootopia (2016) 5. 4,673,009 Kung-fu Panda (2008) 6. 3,984,530 Kung-fu Panda 3 (2016) 7. 3,300,533 Shrek 2 (2004) 8. 3,015,165 Howl's moving Castle (2004) 9. 3,000,056 How to train your dragon 2 (2014) 10. 2,844,159 Shrek 3 (2007) 11. 2,801,949 Big Hero 6 (2015) 12. 2,625,572 Minions (2015) 13. 2,603,857 How to train your Dragon (2010) 14. 2,344,700 Shrek (2001) 15. 2,224,118 Shrek Forever After .... 1,286,412 Finding Nemo (2003)

Yeah I'm inclined to agree with yjs. Competition isn't really the issue, since IO managed 5M admissions last year competing against Northern Limit Line, Terminator as well as direct competition from Yokai watch and 12M admissions film assassination in it's third week. The key point is whether it can capture the adult audience in the way Frozen, IO and Zootopia managed to. The good news is that with Disney's receng string of successes, audiences will most likely give this a chance.

Well, THE tunnel does have Oh dal-su in it come to think of it who seems to have an uncanny knack of appearing in hugely successful films. Tbh don't really know much about the tunnel, but the premise wasn't really that interesting to me. Expect the acting to be solid though. OC looks like it could flop really hard though...

great work keeping the thread running yjs love your insights

South Korea 2016 Summer Box Office tentpole line-up Here’s a rough look ahead to this year’s tentpole releases and most anticipated korean films for the summer season, the busiest box office period of the year. Considering there has been no 10M admission film up to this point for the current year, you expect the the big4 distributing studios (NEW, CJ, Lotte, Showbox) to battle fiercely to come out on top. A repeating theme of this year’s films is very similar to previous 10M admission films, namely disaster/military operations/contemporary history etc. Train to Busan (부산행) Release date: July 20 Distribution company: NEW Genre: Action/Thriller Train to Busan (TTB) will kick things off this summer, with the release date set for July 20. It follows the story of a man who fights to protect his family and loved ones from a mystery virus that sweeps the country and turns people into zombies. It shares several common themes with 10M admissions film ‘Haeundae’ (2009) which was also a disaster film, also based in the Busan area with the protagonist fighting to save his loved ones. TTB is seen to be another step forward from Haeundae (which wasn't all that great in my opinion) in several ways. Most striking is that this is the first time that zombies are introduced in a Korean commercial film. Also, the film background being set in a 200km per hour train is perceived as being an innovative and fresh approach. Maybe an apt description of this film would be a cross between World War Z and Snowpiercer, both of which were big hits in Korea. TTB was also a big success at the Cannes film festival, receiving favorable reactions leading it to be sold to 156 countries abroad. The Tunnel (터널) Release date: August (TBD) Distribution company: Showbox Genre: Disaster/Drama Like TTB, The Tunnel is also a disaster film but much smaller in scale. Starring Ha Jung-woo and Bae Doo-na (from cloud atlas), it depicts a story about a guy who gets trapped and isolated inside a collapsing tunnel and the changing situations both inside and outside the tunnel during his rescue attempt. While it is smaller in scale when compared to TTB, it draws favorable comparisons to 2013 hit film The Terror Live, which also starred Ha Jung-woo. Operation Chromite (인천상륙작전) Release date: July (TBD) Distribution company: CJ entertainment Genre: War/ drama Operation Chromite (AKA battle of Incheon), is a story that all Koreans grow up learning about. It was the decisive operation in the Korean civil war that culminated in the Korean-American allied forces driving back the North Korean troops. Here’s the general historical outline of operation chromite (from wiki): Operation Chromite is a big budget film (local film standards) so lots of explosions and eye catching scenes are expected. Also, they somehow managed to cast Liam Neeson, who is a big draw in his own right, as General McArthur which adds another dimension of interest to the film. Similar parallels can be drawn between this Operation Chromite and ‘Roaring currents’ which was the biggest hit in Korean cinema history. They’re both primarily centered around military operations, deal with familiar historical themes, and have the backing of the biggest distribution chain in Korea during peak summer. If the quality is there, expect this to do big numbers. The Last Princess (덕혜옹주) Release date: August (TBD) Distribution company: Lotte Genre: Period/Drama The Last Princess (TLP) is a period film that depicts the life story of Princess duk-hye, the youngest daughter of King gojeong, who was sent to Japan after her father passed away under suspicious circumstances (presumed poisoned). Since Gojeong was the father of the last king in Korea (Soonjeong), Duk-hye turned out to be the last princess of Korea. Her childhood friend appears before her during this time and gets involved in a secret independence movement. The overall feel of this films seems to strongly resemble “Assassination” from last year which did 12.7M admissions and follows the recent trend of Japanese colonial era films appearing in commercial films. Another film that it could be compared to is "The last Emperor" which seems to be thematically similar. whether thw quality matches up to that though remains to be seen. Conclusion: Overall, investors and distributions companies seems to have a pretty firm idea on what the audiences want to watch and the films just mentioned generally reflect that. Currently I think Train to Busan has the surest chance of success although Operation Chromite probably has the higher ceiling if it's done well. The last Princess and The tunnel I expect to be decent sized hits but not a 10M admission film. I'll do another analysis for foreign releases when I get the time.

Moana set to be released on February of 2017 in South Korea. It's a weird release date considering most students holidays will be nearing the end by that time. also they won't be able to take advantage of the Lunar new years holiday either which starts in Jan. Basically trying to say I'm pissed at having to wait 3 months to see this in the theatres... never really got the logic behind delayed releases in korea with the piracy industry and all

Starcraft doesn't sound like a date movie though. I assume most of the audience would be male anyway haha.

From a purely biased and personal point of view, TJB has nothing on IO

Upcoming Major June releases (06/16) -Proof of innocence -Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadow (06/22) -Independence Day: Resurgence (06/23) -The Truth Beneath -Suffragette (06/29) -Goodbye Single -The legend of Tarzan -The Hunt (06/30) -BigBang: MADE (TBD) -Born to Dance

X-men: Apocalypse should reach 3M no problem. Last week it dropped 33% against new releases. A similar drop against this week's new releases should see it drop to around 20-25K admissions range. Projections based on that for the rest of the week should see it play out something like this. Thur: 22K Fri: 30K Sat: 75K Sun: 68K That should put it near the 3M by the end of the week. A potentially anomaly is Warcraft, which should provide fiercer competition for the similar target demo. I expect the final total will come slightly below deadpool.

Maybe Life of Pi numbers since they're pretty similar admissions: 1.59M Gross: $14.32M current presales: 8. 6,460 (2.3% share)

Initial ratings on Naver aren't that impressive, 7.78 audience and netizen score though that's not always denifitive as shown by the wailing. I don't think it will get that kind of WoM though, I don't see this being talked about as much in public as The Wailing was.

I don't think there was muh hype to be honest, Superman isn't really a popular superhero in Korea. The Dark-knight trilogy was popular but then that was from Christopher Nolan who has a cult status here. Zack Snyder films have never really done that well with maybe 300 being the exception.

First class is the better film

did you see Apocalypse during the weekend?

Top 10 films of 2016 (admissions) 01. 9,706,695 A violent Prosecutor 02. 8,643,593 Captain America: Civil War 03. 5,680,789 The Wailing 04. 4,701,929 Zootopia 05. 3,984,796 Kung-fu Panda 3 06. 3,585,903 Spirit's homecoming 07. 3,317,182 Deadpool 08. 2,256,280 Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice 09. 2,007,180 The Revenant 10. 1,640,449 X-Men: Apocalypse *Red: Still in theatres

X-men franchise $ Gross (admissions): Title (year) $5.1M (N/A): X-men (2000) $7.36M (N/A): X2: (2003) $12.4M (1.79M): X-men: the last stand (2006) $18M (2.53M): X-men: First Class (2011) $6.6M (1.28M): X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) $6.9M (1.08M): The Wolverine (2013) $33.72 (4.31M): X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) Direct weekly comparisons (will update weekly) 1) X-Men: First Class wk1: 767,779 (4-day with previews) wk2: 781,930 (+02%) wk3: 414,201 (-47%) wk4: 374,969 (-9.4%) wk5: 123,563 (-67%) total: 2,534,977 2) X-Men: Days of Future past wk1: 1,755,849 (4-day with previews) wk2: 1,349,315 (-23.2%) wk3: 851,771 (-36.9%) wk4: 219,040 (-74.3%) wk5: 119,991 (-48.4%) total: 4,313,871 3) X-men: Apocalypse Wk1: 1,640,449 (5-day with previews)