Song Joong-ki, Kang Dong-won, Song Kang-ho Failed In Box Office: When Top Star Cast Doesn’t Guarantee A Hit
“Having a star actor will guarantee a box office hit” has become an old saying.
According to Korea’s integrated ticket network for movie theaters on October 15th, “Hopeless” starring Song Joong-ki and “Miss Fortune” starring Uhm Jung-hwa, which were released side by side on October 11th, have been sluggish since the beginning, attracting only 130,000 and 40,000 cumulative viewers, respectively.
“Hopeless” has been expected to mark Song Joong-ki’s return to the big screen for the first time in six years since his appearance in “The Battleship Island” (2017), but the movie could not exceeded “30 Days,” which was released a week earlier, and has remained in second place at the box office. The number of spectators on Saturday, the first weekend, reached only 30,000, which is only a quarter of the number of people who came to watch “30 Days,” which attracted 130,000.
The situation of “Miss Fortune” is even worse. The movie started third at the box office revenue, but immediately fell to fifth place the next day, failing to recover its ranking. The rise of Uhm Jung-hwa due to the success of the drama “Doctor Cha” earlier and the popularity of the comedy genre did not seem to have led to the success of the film.
From the first day of release, the two movies received low ratings on the CJ CGV viewers’ rating Egg Index, which is considered the most trusted movie rating by Korean audiences. It is analyzed that these evaluations spread rapidly through social media and led to negative word of mouth. Even now, the movies’ egg index are 77% and 65%, respectively, which is at the bottom of the screenings.
“The important thing is word of mouth, not star power.” Prior to them, Song Kang-ho, Ha Jung-woo and Kang Dong-won, who released new movies at once on the 27th of last month, aiming at the Chuseok holiday, also tasted the bitterness of the box office. Ha’s “Road to Boston” (4.5 million at break-even point) and Song Kang-ho’s “Cobweb” (2 million at break-even point), which cost 21 billion won and 9.6 billion won to produce, only attracted 900,000 and 300,000 people, respectively, until the 14th, which is a crushing defeat. Kang Dong-won’s “Dr. Cheon And The Lost Talisman,” which attracted 1.83 million people, is attracting an average of only 10,000 people a day, making it unlikely to break even (2.5 million).
Unlike the mentioned cases, the romance comedy “30 Days” starring Kang Ha-neul and Jung So-min, which was considered the weakest opponent, kept the top spot for 12 days and surpassed 1 million viewers.
A multiplex theater official said, “In the atmosphere where the audience’s interest in Korean movies has dropped significantly, the most important thing has become ‘word of mouth’ of real audiences, not star appearances,” adding, “30 Days” also attracted more audiences in the second week than in the first weekend thanks to word of mouth.”
