Korea Box Office: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ Enjoys Strongest Opening of the Year

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief In late night proceedings on Wednesday, a Seoul court dismissed police requests for the formal arrest of prominent Korean actor Yoo Ah-in on drug charges. The star of “Burning,” “The Throne” and Netflix series “Hellbound,” appeared at the Seoul Central District Court on charges that he used five different drugs. Local media photos showed that Yoo’s hands were tied with what appeared to be a blue cloth or cord before and during his 90-minute daytime court appearance. Footage also showed that he was hit by a bottle of coffee thrown by a disgruntled fan, before Yoo was led away, unhurt, by bodyguards.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Fast & Furious 10” (aka “Fast X”) drove off with the top prize at the South Korean box office on its opening weekend. It earned $4.99 million between Friday and Saturday, according to data from Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). And over its full five-day run, from a Wednesday opening, it earned $6.76 million. Kobis showed the film claiming a 48% market share. The speedy start for “Fast X” was enough to depose “Guardians of the Galaxy 3,” which had ridden atop the Korean chart for the two previous weekends. In its third weekend on release “GOTG 3” earned $3.04 million, a 48% week-on-week decline, giving it a cumulative of $26.9 million after 19 days on release in Korea. That is the fourth highest total for any film that has played in Korean cinemas this year.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “In Our Day,” the film by South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo which closes the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival, has seen distributors in multiple territories move early to strike rights deals. French rights were picked up by Capricci), Spanish rights by L’Atalante Cinema and Greek rights by Ama Films. The film has its official premiere on May 25. Seoul-based Finecut has long been the sales agent for Hong’s plentiful output. In addition to the deals on “In Our Day,” Finecut signed agreements with L’Atalante, with France’s Ariona Films and Taiwan’s Cola Films for “In Water,” Hong’s first film of 2023 which premiered in the Encounters section in Berlin in February. The film was previously sold to Cinema Guild for North America.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Irish screen legend and BAFTA-award winner Patrick Bergin (“Sleeping With the Enemy,” “Patriot Games”) and Francis Magee (“Kin”) have joined true-crime thriller, “Kiss of the Con Queen,” being directed by Tom Waller (“The Last Executioner,” “The Cave”). The pair join real-life victim Eoin O’Brien (“The Last Full Measure”) who plays an actor duped by an impersonator into traveling to Indonesia on the promise of auditions for a leading role in a DC origins series. There he discovers that he had been scammed by the infamous Con Queen of Hollywood. Ravi Patel (“Transformers,” “Meet the Patels”) plays the fraudster.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief The Busan International Film Festival, Asia’s biggest annual film event, may be headed for fresh turmoil following the announcement by festival chairman Lee Yong-kwan that he plans to resign. On Friday, the festival’s director Huh Moonyung announced his plan to resign and exit by the end of the month. The two high-level resignations follow the announcement a week ago that the festival would split the director’s job and appoint Cho Jongkook to the newly created position of managing director. “Festival director Huh Moonyung and chairperson Lee Yong-kwan have both announced their resignation, but neither have been processed yet,” a festival spokesperson confirmed to Variety.

Naman Ramachandran Disney’s “Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3” stayed atop the U.K. and Ireland box office for a second consecutive weekend with £5.4 million ($6.6 million) for a total of £23.9 million, per figures from Comscore. In second place, in its sixth weekend, Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” collected £858,444 for a total of £51 million. There were two debuts in the top five. Sony’s “Love Again” bowed in third place with £340,785 and Universal’s “Book Club: The Next Chapter” in fourth with £299,370. Rounding off the top five was Studiocanal’s “Evil Dead Rise,” which earned £258,417 in its fourth weekend for a total of £5 million.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3” enjoyed a second weekend on top of the mainland China box office, as all top five placed films remained unchanged and audiences await “Fast & Furious 10.” “Guardians Vol 3” earned $19.0 million between Friday and Sunday, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That was a decent week-on-week hold, representing a drop of only 32% from its debut weekend, following a solid but unspectacular start. And it gives the film a total of $58.7 million after ten days in mainland Chinese theaters. Imax screens accounted for $3 million of the film’s weekend score in China and lifted the film’s Imax total in China to $10.4 million, which Imax calculates as 18% of its China total.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3″ was victorious again at the domestic box office, adding $60.5 million in its second weekend of release. Ticket sales dropped by 49% from its debut, marking an impressive hold… at least for a superhero movie. Across more than 30 Marvel entries, only “Black Panther” (45%) and “Thor” (47%) have had stronger second weekend holds. By comparison, recent Marvel movies such as “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “Thor: Love and Thunder” declined by nearly 70% in their sophomore outings. Those are brutal falls, even for movies that debuted to more than $100 million. Those entries were reminders that Marvel may remain critic-proof in terms of opening weekends, but they’re no longer immune to quickly falling back down to Earth.

J. Kim Murphy The book club can’t topple comic books, as Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” will easily hold off the opening of “Book Club: The Next Chapter” to retain the top spot at the box office. “The Next Chapter” earned $2.14 million on its opening day, projecting a debut of $7 million from 3,508 locations for the three-day frame. That’s on the lower end of estimates heading into the weekend. While there’s hope that the Focus Features release will be able to earn a boost in ticket sales on the Mother’s Day holiday, the sequel won’t be able to match its predecessor. Released by Paramount in 2018, the first “Book Club” debuted to $13.5 million before legging out to a $68 million gross in North America — a solid result for an older-skewing comedy, especially before the COVID pandemic impacted the theatrical landscape.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Box office headlines have lately been dominated by Hollywood movies like Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which has become the first movie of the year to hit $1 billion, and Disney’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3.” But a closer look at the global box office recovery indicates that Tinseltown does not have the field to itself. In fact, international films and markets — not the United States — are driving the current global box office recovery. In some territories, local-language titles are even dominant over Hollywood releases. And the overall scale of overseas ticket sales now dwarfs that of North America by more than two to one.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Bruce Berman, a senior executive who was previously chairman and CEO of Los Angeles-based Village Roadshow Pictures, has come out of retirement to board the recently-founded film studio Through the Lens Entertainment. The company, founded by producer Aditya Chand, is headquartered in Singapore with operations in the U.S. and Japan. It aims to combine the opportunities of the East and the power and experience of the studio systems in the West, “to offer a new studio ecosystem out of Asia, that is built for the digital age.” Two film projects are already underway and a third with “Slumdog Millionaire” star Frieda Pinto is in development.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Prime Video has set May 18 for the global release of its upcoming Indian anthology series “Modern Love Chennai.” This is the third Indian adaptation of “Modern Love,” the internationally acclaimed original anthology directed by John Carney, following “Modern Love Mumbai” and “Modern Love Hyderabad.” Produced under the banner of Tyler Durden and Kino Fist, with Thiagarajan Kumararaja as the creator, the six-episode anthology presents a bouquet of love stories set in the city of Chennai that explore relationships, push boundaries, and open minds.  “Love stories and rom-coms have never been my cup of tea. Thus, ‘Modern Love Chennai’ was an interesting challenge,” said Kumararaja, creator of the series and writer-director of one of the episodes. “With these stories, we have explored and celebrated the old-world charm of the city, which remains rooted in a distinct blend of tradition and modernity.” 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” made $28 million of gross box office on its opening weekend in mainland China. That was a solid result in present circumstances, rather than an overwhelming one. The film easily displaced two of the weaker Chinese titles that had been released a week earlier to take advantage of the five-day May Day holiday season. “Born to Fly,” a patriotic action adventure about Chinese test pilots, nose-dived by 75% as it fell from a $40 million first place debut to a $11.2 million third-placed second flap. Its cumulative after two weekends is $77.3 million, according to weekend data from consultancy Artisan Gateway.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” the conclusion to Marvel’s trilogy about an intergalactic crew of misfits, kicked off with $114 million in its domestic box office debut. Those ticket sales rank as the second-biggest opening weekend of the year, behind “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” with $146 million. Despite the towering figure, the film ever-so-slightly missed expectations of $120 million and arrived considerably behind its predecessor, 2017’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” with $146 million. It’s a jump on the first “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which introduced the world to Chris Pratt’s Star Lord and his friends and opened to $94 million in 2014.

according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo. It is predicted to take home $250 million worldwide on its opening weekend, Forbes reported.

J. Kim Murphy “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” formally kicked off the summer blockbuster season Friday. While Disney’s domestic numbers have yet to come in, analysts indicate the film drew about $48 million on its opening day, a figure that includes $17.5 million in Thursday previews. “Vol. 3” is on track to land within its expectations heading into the weekend, which had pegged the Disney release to take root with a $110 million to $120 million debut through Sunday. That would be enough to notch the second-highest opening of the year, behind only the $146 million that “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” coined over a three-day frame. However, it’s still roughly a quarter down from the $146.5 million debut earned by “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” back in 2017.

The James Gunn Marvel Studios title is spotting $47M-$48M today, including $17.5M previews, for what will hopefully be a $110M start at 4,450 theaters. One analyst tells us that dollar for dollar that Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is looking a lot like Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Both movies did about $37M in presales with the latter debuting to $106.1M (which was a franchise record opening) over its Friday-Sunday.

Jordan Moreau The Guardians of the Galaxy are blasting off at the box office one final time, earning $17.5 million in previews for director James Gunn’s “Vol. 3” finale. The newest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe will take the box office crown after Universal and Illumination’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” topped the charts for the last four weeks. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is expected to bring in between $110 million and $120 million in its opening weekend, which is in between the grosses of the previous two films, also directed by Gunn. The first “Guardians of the Galaxy” had $11.2 million in Thursday previews on its way to opening with $94 million back in 2014. Its sequel, 2017’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” reached $17 million in Thursday previews and landed a $146 million opening weekend.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hybe Corp., the structure behind K-pop icons BTS, enjoyed strong financial performance during the first three months of the year. The results were achieved despite BTS’s effective hiatus and quarter of corporate skirmishing in the Korean music sector. The company Tuesday reported revenues of KRW411 billion in the three months to end of March and operating profit of KRW52.5 billion, increases of 42$ and 44%, respectively. Adjusted earnings before interest taxation, depreciation and amortization were up 12% at KRW71.9 billion. Hybe did not confirm financial media calculations that it would net an investment profit of some $87 million on the sale of shares in SM Entertainment, which it bid to control but lost to Kakao.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Malaysian social drama “Abang Adik” was named best film and winner of the Golden Mulberry prize on Sunday at the Far East Film Festival in Italy’s Udine. The film is a story of two undocumented and orphaned men, who may or may not be real brothers, but who lift each other up. The film’s director Jin Ong collected the White Mulberry prize for best debut feature and “Abang Adik” added a third prize decided by the festival’s season pass holders. Second place on the podium went to South Korea with Chang Hang-jun’s “Rebound,” while third place went to “Yudo,” by Japan’s Suzuki Masayuki.