Although Avatar, Frozen and Interstellar have drawn 10 million moviegoers, Age of Ultron set the record for the fastest time to reach 10 million viewers. (image: Marvel Korea)
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’ has attracted more than 10,000,000 moviegoers in Korea 25 days after opening, making the sequel the 15th film in Korea to do so.
Although ‘Avatar’, ‘Frozen’ and ‘Interstellar’ have drawn 10 million moviegoers, ‘Age of Ultron’ set the record for the fastest time to reach 10 million viewers.
‘Age of Ultron’ is also the first film with 10 million moviegoers in 2015. The sequel to ‘The Avengers’ also had a record-high 1 million advanced ticket sales, and attracted 620,000 viewers on the day of its opening.
The buzz has not died down since. On May 1 (Labor Day) 772,666 moviegoers saw ‘Age of Ultron’ while 2,818,886 moviegoers saw it on the weekend, both record-high figures in Korean film history. The film’s revenues from box offices around the world surpassed US$ 1 billion.
Age of Ultron appears to be targeting Korean audiences, as it has Korean actress Claudia Kim and action sequences unfolding in Seoul. However, some audiences were not happy with the film’s 20 minutes of Seoul footage, as they were eager to see more of their capital in the Avengers franchise.
The film is also one of the beneficiaries of the Korean Film Council (KOFIC)’s location incentive project, which offers up to a 30% cash rebate on production expenditures in Korea for foreign filmmakers.
The expense for shooting Seoul footage was about 10 billion won (US$ 9.21 million), and the Avengers filmmakers were known to be granted 3 billion won (US$ 2.76 million) from the KOFIC.
Some are also questioning whether KOFIC’s grant was worth the alleged economic benefits associated with the footages.
By Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
