The weekend in numbers
Japanese animated feature Chiikawa the Movie: The Secret of the Mermaid Island held the top spot in South Korea for a third straight frame, earning $2.8 million from 378,474 admissions across 1,181 screens over the Oct. 16–18 weekend, according to KOBIS data. That was 42.7% of the entire weekend market.
The Toho-distributed film has now collected $14 million from 1,828,909 admissions since its Sep. 30 launch.
The chart behind it
- 1. Chiikawa — $2.8M weekend, 42.7% share, $14M cume.
- 2. The Assassin(s) — $1M, 15.5% share, $23.7M cume.
- 3. Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub — $731,309, 10.8% share, $14.3M cume.
- 4. The Odyssey — $580,011, 8.6% share, $104.1M cume.
- 5. Whalefall — $300,004 debut, 4.4% share.
New openers struggled to convert screens. Whalefall took $300,004 from 621 screens in its first weekend, while Street Fighter opened eighth with $122,148 from 523 screens.
Why the concentration matters
A 42.7% share in week three is not a normal wide opening. It means one imported anime title took nearly half of nationwide cinema revenue while playing on 1,181 screens; the next film earned 15.5%.
For screen planners, the metric to watch is per-screen average. Chiikawa made about $2,371 per screen. The Odyssey, still in its eleventh weekend, made about $1,206 per screen from a much smaller 481 screens. By contrast, Whalefall averaged $483 per screen and Street Fighter only $234.
The Assassin(s) anomaly
Director Hur Jin-ho’s political crime thriller stayed second despite defamation complaints and protests over its reconstruction of the 1974 assassination attempt on President Park Chung-hee. It has crossed three million admissions, with a $23.7 million cume from 3,249,174 tickets since Sep. 23.
The result is a reminder that a film can face legal and political pressure and still hold commercial momentum; the awareness generated by controversy may be reaching an audience that otherwise would not have considered a period inquiry drama.
What to do with this
Media planners should separate rank from screen efficiency. When a wide release lands fifth or eighth on a soft weekend, its total gross can hide weak demand; per-screen average exposes whether the screen count is doing the work or the film is. For anime and character IP, a third-week hold above 40% share is a strong signal to lock holdover slots rather than replace them with unproven wide openers.
Source: Variety
