[HanCinema's News] "New Normal" Leads in Opening Day at South Korean Box Office

The artistically minded film "New Normal" was not a major box office draw, with the horror turned social drama premiering last year on the festival circuit. At that time Panos Kotzathanasis reviewed the film. Already it's done better than expected, with 12,790 admissions on its first day and 8,851 admissions on its second day of availability. With early admissions taken into account, "New Normal" currently has 26,928 admissions.

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This was good enough for the best South Korean film performance at the box office on November 8th, but not November 9th. "New Normal" only narrowly edged out "The Boys" which had 12,580 admissions on its eighth day of availability and 13,245 admissions on its second day. "New Normal" has a notably strong cast of past, present, and future stars with Choi Ji-woo, Choi Minho, and Lee Yoo-mi among its leads, but the strange concept and limited distribution could only go so far.

Both films performed negligibly compared to foreign films The Marvels and The Boy and the Heron. However, "New Normal" has also received exceptional ratings from spectators. As of this writing, the film has 9.7 among self-reported KOFIC data. By comparison, The Marvels has a 4.3 rating and The Boy and the Heron has a 5.5 rating.

Written by William Schwartz