South Korea Box Office: ‘San Andreas’ Earns $7.2M Despite MERS Scare

Though theater admissions have plummeted in South Korea due to nationwide fear of the MERS virus, San Andreas has earned a cumulative $7.2 million as of Monday.

The earthquake disaster film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson swept 48.4 percent of sales during the weekend of June 6-8, according to the Korean Film Council’s KOBIS database. Warner Bros. Korea distributes the title here.

San Andreas has thus pushed down Mad Max: Fury Road, also handled by Warner Bros. Korea, to second place after it dominated the box office for three straight weeks. The George Miller actioner grabbed 17.6 percent of the market share to earn a gross total of $26.3 million.

Spy, which ranked No. 2 for two consecutive weeks, slipped down to third. The 20th Century Fox Korea film brought in 15.6 percent of the sales during this period and has so far earned over $14 million here.

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The local crime romance Perfect Proposal debuted in fourth, accounting for 4.4 percent of tickets sold. The CJ Entertainment film stars popular actors Im Soo-jung (All About My Wife) and Yoo Yeon-seok (The Royal Tailor) who play accomplices in an intricate scheme to seduce an older casino tycoon for his inheritance.

Next in fifth was the local erotic costume drama The Treacherous, which jumped up one spot from last week. Distributed by Lotte Entertainment, The Treacherous chronicles the true story of the 16^th-century tyrant, Yeonsangun, who was overthrown for such depravities as seizing thousands of maidens from across the country for his sexual pleasure. It took 3.5 percent of the market share and its cumulative earnings came down to $7.3 million.

According to the Korean Film Council’s KOBIS database, theater admissions plummeted compared to that of recent weekend scores: the number of theatergoers on Friday went down 11.7 percent from last week, 25.2 percent from two weeks before and 28.7 from three weeks before, while Saturday’s figures saw similar decreases of 19.2 percent, 23.5 percent and 19.5 percent respectively.