Na Hong-jin’s fantasy thriller Hope has topped the South Korean box office with this year’s biggest opening to date.
The film earned $11.4m (KRW16.8bn) from 1,504,019 million admissions on its opening weekend across 2,334 screens, claiming a revenue share of 64.74%. Since debuting on Wednesday (July 15), it has grossed $16m (KRW23.7bn) from 2,129,726 admissions, according to Korean Film Council (Kofic) tracking service Kobis.
It is already the eighth biggest title of the year to date at the Korean box office.
The film was released across a range of premium formats including Dolby Cinema, Imax, ScreenX and 4DX.
After setting the record for Korea’s biggest opening day of 2026, earning nearly $2.5m from 333,915 admissions, Hope hit the 1 million mark on its third day (July 17) and the 2 million mark in the afternoon of its fifth day of release (July 19).
It reached each of these milestones faster than any other film released this year, just beating Yeon Sang-ho’s zombie thriller Colony, which crossed the 2 million milestone in the evening of its fifth day in cinemas (May 25).
Jang Hang-jun’s historical drama The King’s Warden took around 12 days to break 2 million admissions in February. It remains the highest grossing film of all time in Korea with earnings of $110.2 from 16,912,725 total admissions.
Hope had already set a record ahead of release, reaching number one faster than any other film in Korean pre-sales this year.
Thie highly anticipated action thriller, which premiered in Competition at Cannes, marks the long-awaited return of acclaimed director Na following The Wailing in 2016.
Set in a remote village near Korea’s Demilitarized Zone, Hope follows a police chief caught up in a desperate fight for survival against otherworldly creatures. The cast is led by Korean stars Hwang Jung-min, Zo In-sung and Jung Ho-yeon alongside Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Taylor Russell and Cameron Britton.
Hope, which reportedly has the biggest ever budget for a Korean film at around $46m (KRW70bn), is set to screen as the Centrepiece feature of the New York Asian Film Festival today (July 20), where director Na will receive the Daniel A. Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema. The film is set for a US release by Neon on September 9.
Ranking second at the weekend’s box office was Universal Pictures animation Minions & Monsters, which debuted with $2.2m from 308,575 admissions for a cume of $2.6m.
This comes after the third instalment in the Minions prequel series (and seventh overall in the Despicable Me franchise), scored a franchise-low debut in the US earlier this month before going on to gross $358m worldwide.
Disney’s live-action Moana came third, adding $1.2m for a cume of $5.7m since opening on July 8.
Toy Story 5 ranked fourth, adding $833,691 on its fifth weekend and bringing the Pixar sequel’s total up to $19.1m (KRW28.3bn) in South Korea.
Yeom Ji-ho’s psychological thriller The Eyes rounded out the top five, earning a further $551,925 (KRW0.8bn) on its fourth outing for a cume of nearly $10m.
The only other local title in the top 10 was Yeon Sang-ho’s zombie thriller Colony, which ranked seventh with earnings of $92,053 after two months on release. It has a cume of $42.3m (KRW62.6bn) from 5.94 million admissions, making it the second biggest title at the South Korea box office of 2026 to date – only behind The King’s Warden.
No comments yet