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Korea Box Office: ‘Dolittle’ Crushes ‘Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’ in Clashing Debuts

Universal’s “Dolittle” crushed “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in an unusual opening weekend clash at the South Korean box office.

Dolittle” accounted for 40% of the nationwide theatrical total as it earned $5.37 million over the weekend from 718,000 tickets. That put it in first place and knocked Korean volcano disaster movie “Ashfall” from the top spot that it had occupied for three weeks. “Dolittle” had opened on Wednesday, and, including the week days, its five-day cumulative score was $6.84 million.

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Korea was one of the first territories to get “Dolittle” and one of the last major markets to open Disney’s “Skywalker.” The two films enjoyed 1,290 screens and 948 screens respectively, pointing to an inferior per screen average for “Skywalker.”

“Skywalker” earned $2.16 million from 262,000 admissions over the weekend, and $3.09 million from 381,000 ticket sales over five days, having made the same Wednesday opening as “Dolittle.” Over the weekend “Skywalker” ranked second by admissions, and third by gross revenue, with a roughly 15% share of the market. No other new release film made it into the top ten.

CJ Entertainment’s “Ashfall” earned $2.04 million from 265,000 admissions on its fourth weekend of release. Its cumulative total since Dec. 19, 2019, now stands at $58.6 million from 8 million ticket sales.

Lotte CultureWorks’ historical drama “Forbidden Dream” earned $1.01 million in its third weekend of release. After three weekends, its cumulative is a modest $13.5 million from 1.89 million admissions.

U.S. war action film “Midway” took fifth place over the weekend with takings of $788,000. That gives it a total of $6.60 million after 12 days in Korean theaters.

In lower positions “Frozen 2” reached $98.9 million from a run that started on Nov. 21, 2019. In contrast, “Ford Vs Ferrari” now looks to be running out of road. On its sixth lap, it earned just $145,000, remaining in the points with a ninth place finish, and a cumulative $10.1 million on the clock since its Dec. 4, 2019 getaway. “Knives Out,” which released the same day, finished the Jan 10-12 weekend carving out $141,000 for tenth place. Its cumulative is now $5.56 million.

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