At the South Korean box office this weekend, honors were split between the local romantic drama “Once We Were Us” and James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar: Fire and Ashes,” with the former selling the most tickets and the latter securing the highest revenue.
“Once We Were Us” rose to No. 1 in attendance, ending the “Avatar” trilogy’s three-week reign. The film attracted 340,267 admissions from Friday to Sunday and grossed $2.3 million. Since its Dec. 31 release, the film has collected a total of $6.9 million from 1,046,417 admissions, according to data from KOBIS, a tracking service run by the Korean Film Council.
Directed by Kim Do-young, Once We Were Us is a Korean remake of the 2018 Chinese hit Us and Them. This movie, starring Koo Kyo-hwan and Moon Ga-young, depicts two ex-lovers who unexpectedly cross paths several years after breaking up, and are faced with unresolved feelings and the lives they have built separately.
“Once We Were Us” had better ticket sales, but “Avatar: Fire and Ash” retained the revenue crown. The film had 316,262 admissions over the weekend and grossed $2.6 million. The film has attracted 6,079,644 admissions since its release in mid-December and has currently collected $48.1 million.
Disney’s “Zootopia 2” remains the only animated blockbuster in the top spot, maintaining its third place. The sequel earned $887,595 over the weekend from 133,639 people in attendance, bringing its total gross to $54.8 million with 8,313,926 people in attendance.
The Korean release “Choir of God” debuted at number 4. This music drama, directed by Kim Hyun Hyub, marks actor Park Si Hoo’s return to the big screen. The film follows an effort to circumvent international sanctions by seeking help from a Hungarian NGO to build a church in Pyongyang. The film grossed $609,305 from a weekend attendance of 89,857, for a total of $1.6 million from an attendance of 260,431.
Rounding out the top five was another local title, “Even If This Love Leaves the World Tonight.” A romance film starring Ju Young Woo and Shin Shi Ah, based on the novel by Misaki Ichijo. The film, directed by Kim Hye-young, is a bittersweet high school romance about a girl with anterograde amnesia whose memory is reset every morning. An additional $441,507 was added from the weekend’s attendance of 65,744, bringing the total to $5.1 million from the attendance of 779,299.
The Japanese anime “Crayon Shin-chan the Movie: Super Hot! Spicy Kasukabe Dancers” came in 6th place with $180,668 out of 27,869 attendees and $2.9 million in box office revenue. Paramount’s “The SpongeBob Movie: Find Squarepants” followed with $66,903 from 11,120 attendees, earning a total of $488,136.
Further down the chart, Aziz Ansari’s comedy Good Fortune (starring Ansari alongside Seth Rogen and Keanu Reeves) came in at No. 8 with $60,466 from 9,816 tickets, and now has a total of $122,891. The new film “Arctic Dogs: In Search of the North Pole Idol” came in ninth place with $34,810 from 7,146 people in attendance, while “Pororo the Movie: Sweet Castle Adventure” finished in the top 10 with $41,322 from 6,818 people and a cumulative total of $1.4 million.
The overall market cooled down significantly due to the holiday season’s soaring prices. The top 10 films grossed a total of $7.9 million over the weekend, down from last weekend’s $10.6 million.
