S. Korean box office rises for third month in row in July on blockbusters

All News 11:13 August 03, 2020

SEOUL, Aug. 3 (Yonhap) -- The number of moviegoers rose for the third straight month in July on the back of summer blockbusters, data showed Monday.

Total admissions reached 5.62 million in July, up 45.4 percent from the previous month's 3.86 million, according to data by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

The on-month gain was led by the release of summer tent poles including the zombie action film "Peninsula," which has attracted 3.44 million viewers since its first run on July 15.

Another zombie thriller, "#Alive," released on June 26, also lent support to the July growth, posting a total of 1.9 million admissions.

Hitting rock bottom in April with an all-time low of 970,000 due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, the monthly box office rebounded to 1.53 million in May and 3.86 million in June.

But the July figure tumbled nearly 75 percent on-year from 21.92 million tallied in the same month of 2019. It also marked the lowest for the month since the KOFIC started to compile box-office data in 2004.

Insiders expect the upside trend to continue in August as big-name homegrown and foreign films are set to hit South Korean screens.

The action thriller "Deliver Us From Evil," starring Hwang Jung-min and Lee Jung-jae, will open Wednesday, while the American spy film "Tenet," directed by Christopher Nolan, will be released on Aug. 26.