The Last Dance’ Takes Top Spot

“Venom: The Last Dance” waltzed to a weekend win in South Korea, but failed to shake the country’s box office out of its recent torpor.

The third film in the “Venom” trilogy earned $2.66 million over the Friday to Sunday period, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That represented a dominant 62% market share.

Over the five days since its opening on Wednesday, it built up a cumulative of $4.13 million. At that pace, the new film will struggle to overtake the $15.2 million total earned by “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” which was released in 2021 during the worst of the COVID pandemic.

That is indicative of a downturn at the Korean box office which is beginning to look like it has become structural. Across the nation, Korean cinema receipts were worth just $4.32 million over the latest weekend. By a narrow margin that was the lowest scoring weekend of the year. And in the ten weekends since the end of August there has been only one weekend – the Chuseok holiday session – that exceeded $10 million of gross receipts.

The previous weekend’s winner, “A Normal Family” slipped to second place with a score that was nearly halved. It registered $728,000, compared with $1.43 million in its opening weekend. After 12 days on release the film has a cumulative of $3.32 million.

Third place belonged to Korean drama film “Love in the Big City,” which earned $419,000 over the weekend and now has a cumulative of $5.07 million amasses since Oct. 1. Released the same day, U.S. import “The Wild Robot” came fourth. It earned $293,000 over the weekend and has a running total of $3.90 million.

“I, The Executioner,” a comedy crime drama which dominated the charts for a month between mid-September and mid-October, held on to fifth spot in the latest session. The Ryu Seung-wan-directed film added $234,000 for a cumulative of $52 million. That is the fourth highest total by any film this year in Korea and the third highest by any Korean picture. But with 7.5 million admissions to date, it falls well short of the 10 million figure considered locally to be blockbuster material.

“Elizabeth, The Musical Live,” a filmed stage performance, was sixth at the Korean box office in revenue terms, though local charts, which rank titles by spectator numbers, classified it lower. “Elizabeth” earned $124,000 over the weekend, scored from less than 7,000 tickets and some 120 screens. Since opening on Oct. 16, it has accumulated a $534,000 total.

Based on the tragic fate of legendary Austrian Empress Elisabeth – the mythical and celebrated “Sisi” – and told from the mouth of her convicted murderer, “Elizabeth” recounts the tale of her fatal, lifelong love affair with death. It is written by Michael Kunze and composed by Sylvester Levay.

Lower chart positions were taken by the reissued 2004 film “The Notebook” which earned $123,000 over the weekend; U.S. animation “Little Emma,” which had a three-day opening worth $53,000; and another U.S. animated title “Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue,” with $37,000.

Pedro Almodovar’s “The Room Next Door” took ninth place (tenth by ticket sales). It earned $44,000 over the weekend and $72,000 over its opening five days.