According to the Korean Film Council, Interstellar brought in 227,084 viewers throughout 1,090 movie theaters across the country on the first day. (image: Kobizmedia/Korea Bizwire)
SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — “Interstellar,” the newly released sci-fi adventure film, is gaining popularity in Korea by recording a box office number of 220,000 for the first day on November 6.
Movie industry officials hoped this would be the momentum for all other new films to log in good numbers. According to the Korean Film Council, Interstellar brought in 227,084 viewers throughout 1,090 movie theaters across the country on the first day.
The months of October and November are considered by film industry people as the slowest season of the year. Instead of blockbusters, movie distributors put on typically low-budget movies to get through the lean time. This year, according to Korean film industry analysts, has been much leaner than usual.
During the first week of November, for example, the No. 1 box office movie was “Gone Girl” with only 52,000 admissions. It was followed by a Korean movie “We Are Brothers.” The combined admission number of all other eight movies until No. 10 was fewer than 100,000.
In contrast, the total viewer number for top-ten movies on August 10 was more than 4 million. Even the all-time top-grossing movie “The Admiral: Roaring Currents” attracted 1 million viewers a day for the first two weeks, with the total admission number surpassing 17 million in a little more than a month.
In September and October, it seemed moviegoers lost interest in watching movies in theaters even though there were long holidays such as the Chuseok and National Foundation Day and Hangul Day holidays during the months. Movie industry executives commented on this, “There was no killer content to create the buzz effect.”
An official said, “In a situation like this, one smash-hit movie may revive the whole market.” Another said, “I hope Interstellar could play the pump-priming role to pull the whole film industry out of the doldrums.”
Interstellar, directed by Christopher Nolan, who is famous for directing Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, features a team of space travelers who travel through a wormhole in search of a new habitable planet after the earth is no longer able to sustain humanity due to environmental destruction.
By Sean Chung (schung10@koreabizwire.com)
