"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is the first Marvel superhero film released this year. It tells the story of Steve Rogers, the "Super Soldier" Captain America, who, two years after the events of "The Avengers," joins forces with Black Widow to uncover the truth behind a mysterious attack that threatens key S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. "The Avengers" was released in South Korea on April 26, 2012, and accumulated 7,074,867 viewers, currently ranking eighth on the all-time box office list for foreign films released in South Korea, which demonstrates the preference of South Korean audiences for the Marvel superhero series. With this momentum, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" grossed over $11 million in its first week in South Korea, marking the film's best opening week performance overseas. Although the second-week box office dropped by nearly 33% compared to the first, the film still easily retained the top spot with a market share of over 56.3%. The weekend attendance reached 760,000, with a cumulative attendance of over 2.61 million.
The newly released American films "3 Days to Kill" and the holdover "Noah" took second and third place respectively, separated by a narrow margin of only a few hundred viewers, with their combined box office share approaching 17%. After three weeks of release, "Noah" is finally approaching the 2-million-viewer mark. It is worth noting that since the beginning of 2014, South Korean domestic films have been locked in a fierce box office battle with Hollywood films represented by "Frozen." Despite the intense competition, domestic films had never fallen out of the top three. However, this week, under the joint offensive of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," "3 Days to Kill," and "Noah," the top three spots were occupied entirely by Hollywood films for the first time this year. As films such as "The Amazing Spider-Man 2," "The Fatal Encounter," and "The Target" are released, competition in the South Korean domestic market will become even more intense.
In addition, the domestic feature film "Thread of Lies" ranked fourth, with a cumulative audience of 1.55 million. "The Grand Budapest Hotel," starring Ralph Fiennes and others, ranked fifth, showing the smallest drop in box office among individual films compared to last week. "The Grand Budapest Hotel" has now exceeded 420,000 in cumulative attendance, continuing to break the all-time box office record for "diversity films" (small-scale releases, including what are commonly defined as "art-house films" and independent films) in South Korean theaters.
The bottom five of this week's box office chart underwent a major reshuffle. The five new films ranking from 6th to 10th are the American film "Lone Survivor," starring Mark Wahlberg and based on the true experience of a US Navy SEAL in Afghanistan; the Japanese animated film "Crayon Shin-chan: Very Tasty! B-class Gourmet Survival!!"; the American family comedy "August: Osage County," starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts; the domestic film "Mr. Perfect," starring Yoon Shi-yoon and Yeo Jin-goo; and the American religious film "Son of God," which had an early preview.