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[HanCinema's Box Office Review] 2017.06.23 - 2017.06.25

Michael Bay's "Transformers: The Last Knight" capitalises on big opening screen count...

The fifth instalment in the "Transformers" series of films, "The Last Knight", arrived in Korea on Wednesday to a massive 1,727 screens. The film, reportedly Michael Bay's final Transformers film, however, only managed to attract 1.2 million admissions (64.13%), or $12.86 million, which was enough to dislodge Alex Kurtzman's "The Mummy" at the top. Critics have largely slammed Bay's latest, and so far it has grossed just $265.3 million worldwide; the film was produced for $217 million and is expected to reach around $400 million. That would make it the lowest-grossing film in the series by some margin.

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Jo Seon-ho's "A Day - 2017" (starring Kim Myung-min and Byun Yo-han) remained unmoved in second for its second weekend out. From 665 screens, down from 781, "A Day - 2017" claimed 11.19% of the sales (226,299 admissions) and moved its bottom line to $7 million (988,929 admissions). Last weekend's number one, "The Mummy" starring Tom Cruise-a popular actor in Korea-slid to third having managed just 161,756 admissions (8%). With a total gross of $25.5 million (3.5 million admissions), Kurtzman's reboot is currently the fourth highest-grossing foreign film of the year and sixth overall.

"The Villainess", Jung Byung-gil's third feature film, fell one place to fourth during this, its third weekend out. Jung's action thriller captured 4.76% of the box office pie from 463 screens (down from 629), growing its total tally to 1.12 million ($8 million). Far behind in fifth enter "The Circle", an American techno-thriller based Dave Eggers' novel of the same name. "The Circle" earned 38,652 admissions (1.97%) from 169 screens and was followed by Lee Chang-jae's documentary about the former president Roh Moo-hyun, "Our President". Lee's 109-minute true story (now in its fourth weekend out) moved its ticket count to 1.79 million admissions ($12.4 million). "Our President" is also the highest-grossing nonfiction film of the year so far.

The critically acclaimed "Wonder Woman"-directed by Patty Jenkins and starring Gal Gadot-has been flying high on the international cinema circuit since its release Shanghai in May. With a production budget of $149 million, DC Comics' "Wonder Woman" has made over $650 million worldwide. In Korea, it has banked a modest 2.1 million admissions ($15.1 million), 23,490 of which came from this past weekend.

Two new foreign films from America were up next: Evan Tramel's "Fishtales" (2016) and the horror film "Abattoir" earned 21,153 (0.97%) and 20,200 (1.01%) respectively. The final spot fell to the German animation "Richard the Stork", down two places from last weekend. Toby Genkel and Reza Memari's computer-animated adventure added 18,971 admissions (0.84%) to bring its total gross in Korea now to $366,251 (55,517 admissions).

Korean Box Office - Admissions for the Weekend 2017.06.23 - 2017.06.25 (www.kobis.or.kr)

# Films Release date Week-end Total
1 "Transformers: The Last Knight"   1 265 964 1 750 492
2 "A Day - 2017" (하루) 2017/06/15 226 493 989 123
3 "The Mummy"   161 894 3 562 417
4 "The Villainess" (악녀) 2017/06/08 95 453 1 127 463
5 "The Circle"   38 687 50 118
6 "Our President" (노무현입니다) 2017/05/25 36 353 1 798 027
7 "Wonder Woman"   23 526 2 141 539
8 "Fishtales"   21 153 22 351
9 "Abattoir"   20 242 28 960
10 "Richard the Stork" (Überflieger - Kleine Vögel, großes Geklapper)   18 978 55 524
Korean movies only  
  "The Merciless" (불한당: 나쁜 놈들의 세상) 2017/05/17 1 577 928 882
  "Jane" (꿈의 제인) 2017/05/31 1 147 21 127
  "Suh-Suh Pyoung, Slowly and Peacefully" (서서평, 천천히 평온하게) 2017/04/26 862 113 403
  "Blue Butterfly Effect" (파란나비효과) 2017/06/22 814 3 478
  "Warriors of the Dawn" (대립군) 2017/05/31 716 833 852
  "Anarchist from Colony" (박열) 2017/06/28 582 15 939
  "Yongsoon" (용순) 2017/06/08 553 11 669
  "I Am a Cat" (나는 고양이로소이다) 2017/06/08 550 7 676
  "The Sheriff In Town" (보안관) 2017/05/03 450 2 587 624
  "Beat Back" (격퇴, 1956) - Re-release   401 401

- Christopher Wheeler

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