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| ▲ This file photo shows the poster of 'The First Slam Dunk' displayed at a theater in Seoul. (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, Feb. 13 (Yonhap) -- The Japanese animated version of the legendary manga series “The First Slam Dunk” has secured its top spot for another weekend. This is the third weekend the film topped the box office in South Korea.
The animated film manifested the power of anime once again and sat in first place by gathering more than 325,000 (33.8% of sales share) moviegoers over the past three days (from Feb. 10 to 12), according to data released by Korea Film Council on Monday.
“The First Slam Dunk,” which was released right after the New Year holidays on Jan. 4, has been scoring big on nostalgia. After topping the daily box office in the fourth week of its release, on Jan. 27, for the very first time, the sports anime stayed atop the South Korean box office for 17 consecutive days.
The cumulative number of viewers until Sunday was a whopping 2.856 million, becoming the third most-watched animated Japanese film in South Korea.
“Your Name.” (2016, 3.673 million viewers) sits in the top spot, while second place is held by the fantasy anime “Howl’s Moving Castle” (2004, 3,305,000 viewers).
In order to write a new box office record, “The First Slam Dunk” will have to hit the 3 million mark. However, it does not seem easy as Marvel Studio’s forthcoming sci-fi adventure film “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” will arrive in theaters this Wednesday, and audiences are expecting big things from the movie that will introduce a new character, Kang the Conqueror.
Director James Cameron’s iconic romance film “Titanic: 25th Anniversary,” which re-visited the local theaters on Feb. 8, attracted 153,000 (23.1%) moviegoers over the past weekend and entered as second.
James Cameron’s second venture of the Avatar franchise followed behind with 77,000 (10.6%) viewers. It was then followed by the South Korean star-studded action film “Bargaining,” starring Hwang Jung-min and Hyun Bin (4th), French-American director Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” (5th), and the home-grown musical film “Hero” slid one step behind as the 6th.
“Next Sohee,” which was released on the same day as “Titanic,” touched down in seventh place by gathering more than 25,000 moviegoers (2.5%).
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Ha eun Lee)
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