'Peninsula' sets opening-day box office record for 2020

Movies 13:45 July 16, 2020

SEOUL, July 16 (Yonhap) -- The zombie thriller "Peninsula" attracted more than 350,000 moviegoers on the first day of its release, marking this year's highest opening-day attendance in South Korean cinema slumped by the coronavirus, its distributor said Thursday.

The sequel to the 2016 mega-hit zombie blockbuster "Train to Busan" drew 352,926 viewers on Wednesday, according to the Next Entertainment World Co. It beat this year's highest first-day score of about 252,000 set by "The Man Standing Next" in January.

Directed by Yeon Sang-ho and starring Gang Dong-won and Lee Jung-hyun, "Peninsula" tells a tale of survivors on the zombie-infested Korean Peninsula four years after the events in "Train to Busan."

The movie was officially invited to this year's Cannes Film Festival and pre-sold to over 180 nations and territories, including Taiwan, Thailand, Japan, Britain, and France.