'Avatar: The Way of Water' tops box office in first weekend

All News 10:36 December 19, 2022

By Kim Eun-jung

SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Yonhap) -- James Cameron's sequel to his 2009 sci-fi blockbuster, "Avatar: The Way of Water", topped the box office in South Korea during its opening weekend, data showed Monday.

"Avatar 2" registered 2.03 million admissions from Friday to Sunday, accounting for 83.7 percent of the overall ticket sales over the period, according to the data from the Korea Film Council (KOFIC).

The highly-anticipated film has amassed 2.68 million viewers since its theatrical release here on Wednesday, selling tickets at a faster pace than the original "Avatar," which drew 1.87 million during the same period.

"Avatar" attracted 13.6 million moviegoers in South Korea in 2009 to become the most-viewed foreign movie released here. It remains the highest-grossing film of all time with $2.9 billion in global ticket sales.

People pass by the poster of "Avatar: The Way of Water" at a Seoul theater on Dec. 18, 2022. (Yonhap)

Local film distributors, including CJ ENM and Lotte Entertainment, are betting on the Hollywood blockbuster to boost year-end box-office sales amid a pandemic-related slump this year.

The total number of viewers at local theaters reached 2.51 million from Friday to Sunday, sharply up from 887,000 a week earlier.

Korean period thriller "The Night Owl", which had stayed atop the box office chart in the previous three weeks, slipped to second place, drawing 175,000 viewers over the weekend.