KINGMAKER Remains Steady in 2nd Place

After a slight Lunar New Year bump, admissions cooled down almost 30% following the holidays. Local releases timed for the break continued to power the charts, accounting for 75% of the 405,000 tickets sold over the past weekend. There was very little disturbance on the charts, with the top six ranks unchanged.

Maintaining its lead was the swashbuckling sequel The Pirates: The Last Royal Treasure which slowed 50% as it welcomed an additional 165,000 viewers (USD 1.35 million). The film has filled 1.09 million seats (USD 8.79 million) to date but given the Omicron surge and poor audience scores, it will fall well short of its predecessor’s surprise 8.67 million admissions haul in the summer of 2014.

Steady in second place with a softer 37% drop was the political drama Kingmaker with Sul Kyunggu and Lee Sunkyun. The latest film from The Merciless (2017) director Byun Sunghyun has fared better with viewers and brought in another 109,000 of them (USD 894,000) over the weekend, boosting its total to 616,000 entries (USD 4.98 million) to date.

Still a presence on the charts almost two weeks into its run, Spider-Man: No Way Home was once again in third place after a 40% slide. That gave the film 45,000 new sales (USD 324,000), pushing its pandemic record total to 7.45 million admissions (USD 62 million).

Slowing 28%, the US animation Sing 2 added 30,000 sales (USD 241,000), pushing its haul to 829,000 entries (USD 6.4 million)

Closing out the top five was the local animation Hello Jadoo : The Secret of Jeju Island which was down 44% as it admitted 18,000 spectators (USD 135,000) over the weekend, giving it a new total of 89,000 sales (USD 655,000).

Given the exponential rise in cases, no major local releases are currently on the calendar, and the lone major new release will be the Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile. Also, high on the reservations chart is a rerelease of last year’s Dune, which is returning to premium formats.