The South Korean remake of The Intern led the local box office on its opening weekend, ending a six-week streak for Christopher Nolan epic The Odyssey.
The comedy drama drew 275,183 admissions and earned $1.9m over the three-day weekend (September 18-20), according to Korean Film Council tracking service Kobis. Since its release on September 16, the film has recorded 403,903 admissions and earned $2.9m.
September 16 also saw The Odyssey dip to second place in the charts for the first time in 42 days since its release on August 5. The Universal release earned $2.3m from 256,789 admissions over the weekend for a cume of $91.2m from 11.2 million admissions.
While The Odyssey took a larger share of the weekend revenue – almost 31% compared to 26% for The Intern – the Korean box office is ranked according to admissions rather than gross earnings.
The Intern stars Choi Min-sik and Kim Ki-ho in the roles played by Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway in Nancy Meyers’ 2015 film. Like the original, the story revolves around a retired executive who returns to the workforce as an intern, joining a fashion startup led by a young entrepreneur.
Co-produced by Warner Bros. Korea and Anthology Studios, it is directed by Kim Do-young and marks the second film released this year by the filmmaker. Her romantic drama, Once We Were Us, is in Korea’s top 10 box office titles of the year to date, taking $17.6m from 2.47 million admissions.
The weekend also saw Curry Barker’s horror Obsession move down to third place, adding $1m from 131,467 admissions for a cume of $5.4m and 701,713 tickets sold.
Sony’s Resident Evil reboot opened in fourth position, earning $623,486 from 80,779 admissions for a cume of $783,661 and 103,654 admissions since its release on September 17.
Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day fell two places to fifth on its eighth weekend, adding $214,154 from 33,636 admissions to a cume of $67.2m from nearly 9 million admissions.
Japanese animated film Chiikawa The Movie: The Secret Of The Mermaid Island ranked sixth ahead of its release on September 30, with previews generating $200,000 from 21,203 tickets. The film, based on manga series Chiikawa by Nagano, is distributed by CJ ENM in Korea.
Also from Japan, double-feature anime re-release Megabox’s Digimon Adventure & Digimon Adventure Our War Game!, opened in eighth place, earning $89,446 from 11,456 admissions for a cume of $138,196 from 17,764 admissions.
Rounding out the top 10 was Tazza: The Song Of Beelzebub, the final instalment in the long-running Korean film crime franchise. Distributed by CJ ENM, it grossed $60,877 from an extra 6,999 admissions. Ahead of the film’s release on September 23, it has earned a cume of $147,064 with 19,183 tickets sold so far.
The overall gross for the box office over the weekend was $7.6m, a slight increase from last week’s $7.5m.
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