A 16-screen multiplex run by South Korea's Megabox Cineplex has broken a local one-day admissions record, with the venue selling a total of 31,372 tickets on Saturday June 28.

Believing this to also be a new world record, the company intends to submit a formal application to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The tally tops a previous record set by the same venue on July 28, 2001 when 30,378 tickets were sold in a single day. Located in Seoul's COEX Mall, the multiplex is one of five venues operated by Megabox in Seoul, Busan, Suwon, and Daegu, amounting to 48 screens in total. The cinema chain's total attendance for 2003 has already topped 6 million admissions, which amounts to a 50% rise over the previous year.

Films screening on June 28 included Cinema Service's local hit Crazy First Love (which topped the weekend box-office with $3.7m earned in its first four days), Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Japanese horror film Ju-on, Finding Nemo, Narc, Matrix Reloaded, and local heavyweights A Tale of Two Sisters ($13.5m gross in three weeks) and Memories of Murder ($25.8m in ten weeks).

Korea's exhibition sector remains one of the most profitable in the world, with 2002 seeing over $530m in total ticket sales shared by a mere 1000 screens. A recent boom in the construction of new venues has been matched by a rise in admissions from 54.7m in 1999 to 107m in 2002.

Top players in the field include CGV (operated by local major CJ Entertainment), Megabox Cineplex (a joint venture between Korea's Orion Group and Loew's Cineplex), and locally-owned Lotte Cinema.