South Korean Box Office Regains Life During Summer of COVID Thanks to Back-to-Back Zombie Movies Peninsula and #Alive

First off, the South Korean movie theaters have been re-opened since June but there is always going to be asterisk on tickets sold for movies during this COVID-19 period. The theaters are blocking every other seat so each showing can only sell half the tickets as before so it will never be apples to apples to compare a movie that opened during the normal era to the box office haul of a movie during the COVID period. With that said, the first two hits have both been from the still popular zombie genre – indie zombie flick #Alive arrived first and so far has sold over 1.8M tickets sold, a total success for this low budget two star only flick. The bigger draw has been recently premiered Peninsula, the sequel to Train to Busan, which has in two weeks garnered 3M tickets sold and has recouped its break even point of 2.5M tickets. Next week comes Steel Rain 2: Summit which is also trending number 1 in ticket presales so at least this summer feels hopeful again for the South Korean movie industry.

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