Korea Box Office: Don Lee’s ‘The Roundup: Punishment’ Takes Punchy $5 Million on Opening Day

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Takano Tofu” claimed double honors on the closing night of the Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy. It won the Golden Mulberry audience award and the MyMovies Purple Mulberry award. Directed by Mihara Mitsuhiro, “Takano Tofu” is a melodrama about an elderly tofu-making craftsman, who is stuck in his ways but is also experimental and who is kindly, but whose stubbornness brings suffering on those around him.

Founded by Gordon Rigg himself, the Garden Centre began as just a greenhouse, a shed, and a small selection of garden tools. However, fuelled by his passion for gardening and a vision for growth, Gordon Rigg's Centres have flourished over the decades, expanding exponentially to become one of the largest garden centres in the North West.

Naman Ramachandran Warner Bros.’ “Challengers,” led by Zendaya, debuted atop the U.K. and Ireland box office with £1.6 million ($2 million), according to numbers from Comscore. In its third weekend, Studiocanal’s “Back to Black” dropped to second place with £1.4 million for a total of £8.9 million.

Refresh for latest…: Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Kung Fu Panda 4 has topped the half-century mark globally, now with $503.5M worldwide. Of that, $318.5M is from the international box office. Passing $500M makes KFP4, directed by Mike Mitchell (and co-directed by Stephanie Ma Stine), only the fourth animated title to the benchmark since 2020, joining Illumination’s The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($1.4B) and Minions: The Rise of Gru ($943M), and Sony/Marvel’s Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ($691M).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “The Roundup: Punishment,” the fourth film in the Don Lee-starring crime action franchise, earned $20.8 million between Friday and Sunday and punched out all competition at the South Korean box office. “Challengers,” which headed the box office this weekend in North America, with $15 million, opened fourth in Korea a 0.5% market share. “Punishment” accounted for a crushing 94% market share and collected its weekend haul from 2.92 million ticket sales, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). The film opened officially on Wednesday, when it scored $4.92 million, and followed that with a $3.25 million Thursday. Including the weekday takings and a smattering of previews from the previous weekend, the film finished Sunday with a cumulative of $29.3 million, earned from 4.25 million spectators. The stellar performance was the biggest opening this year, ahead of February’s “Exhuma,” a spooky drama that earned $14.5 million on its February first weekend and picked up pace in its second week. Giant screen systems provider, Imax reports that “Punishment” earned $770,000 of its Korean score from just 24 screens.

J. Kim Murphy “Challengers” netted a $6.2 million opening day from 3,477 North American theaters, a figure that includes $1.9 million from preview screenings. Amazon MGM Studios‘ love-triangle drama is set to match industry projections for a $15 million debut.

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Ben Stiller opens up about Zoolander 2‘s box office when it premiered, saying he felt “blindsided” by the results.

The Roundup: Punishment, the fourth film in the blockbuster Korean franchise, has set a new all-time opening day presales record in its home market. Releasing there today, the crime actioner that stars and is executive produced by Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee), had amassed over 834,000 ticket reservations as of Wednesday morning local time, accounting for 95.5% of all sales, according to local reports. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief HYBE Corp., the biggest corporation in the South Korean pop music scene, has begun an audit into ADOR, the label responsible for K-pop act NewJeans. HYBE says that executives at the majority-owned subsidiary mya be attempting to break away from the conglomerate. “HYBE invoked the right to audit CEO Min Hee-Jin and top executives of its subsidiary label ADOR, called them to summon a shareholder meeting and sent an official letter to ask CEO Min to step down,” HYBE said in a statement emailed to Variety. Media sources in Korea have reported that the audit targets Min and one of her deputies and that computer assets have been seized and face-to-face statements already taken. They also report that HYBE suspects Min and her deputy to have circulated confidential information to outsiders in a possible bid to attract investors who would allow ADOR to gain its independence from the parent company. ADOR was founded in 2021 as a HYBE subsidiary and is currently 18% owned by Min, a renown hit-maker in the Korean music industry.

Naman Ramachandran Studiocanal’s Amy Winehouse biopic “Back to Black” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for the second consecutive weekend with £1.8 million ($2.3 million), according to numbers from Comscore. The film now has a running total of £6.3 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “East Bay,” a dark comedy film starring “Fresh Off the Boat” and “Crazy Rich Asians” star Constance Wu, has been picked up for North American distribution and world sales by Level 33 Entertainment. The film won the audience award last year at the Cinequest Film and Creativity festival in San Jose. Level 33 plans to release it next month in North American theaters, ahead of a later digital outing. Wu portrays a close friend of a man who feels let down by his immigrant parents and, after a string of personal and professional humiliations, is forced to accept that he is a failure.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief ‘Kung Fu Panda 4’ retained its lead at the top of the South Korean box office on what was the quietest cinema-going weekend in more than a year. The animated franchise movie held up reasonably. It maintained a nearly 44% market share, dropped only 32% week-on-week and was untroubled by competition from new releases. The film earned $1.91 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic).

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Amazon’s free-of charge, ad-supported streaming platform that is only available in India, miniTV, is expanding its reach within the country. It is adding 200 shows for regional audiences and speakers of Tamil and Telugu. The new line-up of dubbed titles includes marquee and fan-favourite Hindi originals including “Hunter- Tootega Nahi Todega,” “Physics Wallah,” action-packed patriotic series “Rakshak- India’s Braves,” and young romance series “Highway Love.” Hollywood titles dubbed into Tamil and Telugu will include library titles “Twilight,” “Now You See Me,” the “Hunger Games” series, the “Step Up” franchise films and “Red.” miniTV will also upload Korean, Turkish and Mandarin shows dubbed in Tamil and Telugu languages.

Tori Spelling recently sent waves of nostalgia crashing over fans when she took to Instagram to share a snapshot of herself sandwiched between her Beverly Hills, 90210 co-stars Brian Austin Green and Jason Priestley. Captioning the photo of the trio, she quipped: "It's a Donna sandwich.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief While multiple Korean TV series have connected with global audiences, Japan’s production committees, terrestrial broadcasters and talent agencies have kept their TV industry tightly focused on a local market. Anime and variety have long remained the Japanese TV industry’s best-known exports, while the premium end of the spectrum has largely escaped Japanese producers.

Broadway‘s spring newcomers continued pulling in the city’s tastemakers, tourists and the merely curious last week, with overall box office down about 10% from the previous week but most new shows filling at least 90% of their seats.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Disney has confirmed that Korean webtoon-to-screen adaptation “Low Life” is poised to begin production. When valuable treasure is discovered off the coast of Korea, the country’s biggest degenerates come crawling out of the woodwork in the hope of striking it big. Word spreads after a fisherman got lucky and kept a piece of the booty for himself.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Crime drama “The Goldfinger” was the numerical winner at the Hong Kong Film Awards, where it won six prizes on Sunday. But it missed out on the best film prize, which went to box office record breaker “A Guilty Conscience.” “The Goldfinger,” a retro financial thriller starring Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah, earned a slew of technical award (cinematography, art direction, costume and make up, sound design and visual effects) as well as the lead actor prize for Leung. Two films took three prizes each: “In Broad Daylight,” an investigation into abuse at a care home, and “Mad Fate,” Soi Cheang’s grungy examination of superstition in the city.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Kung Fu Panda 4” took top spot at the South Korean box office becoming the film that finally pushed aside local champion “Exhuma,” which had dominated for seven consecutive weeks. But it was an understated victory, rather than a triumphant one, and the exhibition industry’s $5.6 million nationwide haul was among the lowest scoring weekends this year. “Kung Fu Panda 4” earned $2.81 million between Friday and Sunday with a 50.1% market share. Over its full five day run since a Wednesday opening, it enjoyed a $5.96 million total. “Exhuma” slipped to second place in its eight weekend of release.