'Alien' Tops Weekend Box Office for 4 Weeks, Approaching 2 Million... 'Hachuping' Surpasses 900,000

Weekend (6-8) Theater Audience Reaches 693,603

Exterior view of a theater in Seoul
[Photo by Yonhap News]

The American Hollywood sci-fi film "Alien: Romulus" has held the top spot at the box office for four consecutive weeks.

According to the Korea Film Council's integrated ticketing system on the 9th, "Alien: Romulus" attracted 119,365 viewers over the weekend (6th to 8th), securing first place. It topped the box office on its opening weekend, surpassing several new releases that premiered around the same time. Since then, it has steadily drawn audiences, reaching a cumulative total of 1,832,487 viewers and is close to surpassing 2 million.

The film is the seventh sequel to the sci-fi horror movie "Alien" (1979) and the first sequel in four years since "Alien 4" (1998). The story follows young people who leave a colony and arrive at the abandoned space station Romulus, where they face attacks from aliens.

The documentary film "Hello, Grandpa," which depicts the story of panda Fu Bao and his caretaker, ranked second with 88,792 viewers on its opening weekend. The comedy film "Pilot," starring actor Jo Jung-suk and directed by Kim Han-gyeol, took third place with 70,753 viewers. Released on July 31, it has accumulated 4,628,330 viewers.

The Japanese animation "Look Back" attracted 49,910 viewers, ranking fourth, while the domestic animation "Love's Hatchuping" drew 49,786 viewers, placing fifth. "Love's Hatchuping" surpassed 945,386 cumulative viewers, ranking fourth among the highest-grossing Korean animations of all time, following "Leafie, A Hen into the Wild" (2011), "Speckles: The Tarbosaurus" (2012), and "Pororo the Movie: Super Sled Adventure" (2013).

Movie 'Alien: Romulus' stills
[Photo by Walt Disney Company Korea]

In sixth place was Tim Burton's "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" (49,531 viewers), seventh was "Your Childhood" (32,934 viewers), eighth was the Hollywood blockbuster "Twisters" (31,474 viewers), and ninth was "Lim Young-woong│I'm Hero The Stadium" (30,287 viewers).

The total number of moviegoers over the weekend was 693,603. This decline is attributed to the end of the school term and vacation season, as well as a decrease in new film releases. CJ ENM, which has recently struggled with poor film performance, may see a change in atmosphere with the release of "Veteran 2" targeting the Chuseok holiday on the 13th. As of the morning of that day, the film's reservation rate stood at 65.8% (227,188 viewers).