FANTASTIC BEASTS Opens First, but Less Fantastic than Predecessor

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FANTASTIC BEASTS Opens First, but Less Fantastic than Predecessor

Nov 20, 2018

Writer by Pierce Conran
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BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY Rocks Again in Week 3

Despite a major new tent-pole opening following a week that was dominated by holdovers, business dropped around 20% as admissions reached just 1.88 million. The local industry also lost its market advantage, with its share dropping to 29%.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second installment in the Warner Bros Harry Potter prequel series, had little trouble topping the weekend box office with 1.02 million tickets (USD 8.19 million) sold and a total of 1.52 million entries (USD 11.82 million) recorded over five days. However, after opening around 25% below its predecessor and scoring worse with both critics and viewers, the film will have a very tough time coming anywhere close to the total of the first Fantastic Beasts, which reached 4.67 million admissions two years ago.

Meanwhile, word of mouth smash Bohemian Rhapsody rose 1% in its third weekend as it welcomed another 816,000 spectators (USD 6.51 million), to bring the musical biopic to a terrific 3.14 million viewers (USD 24.72 million) to date. The hit is currently back on top of the reservations chart and will likely sail past another milestone or two before it begins to die down.

Also in its third week, local dinner party comedy-drama smash Intimate Strangers saw its take cut in half. The remake filled another 498,000 seats (USD 3.84 million) to push its total to a terrific 4.35 million sales (USD 32.51 million). This is Lotte Entertainment’s third local hit of the year, joining Be With You and Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days.

Burning a hole in the pockets of the BTS Army was the concert film Burn the Stage: The Movie, which kicked off with a respectable 158,000 entries (USD 1.23 million) over the three-day weekend and 235,000 viewers (USD 1.77 million) over its first four days.

Rounding out the past weekend’s top five were previews for this week’s major local release, the action-thriller vehicle Unstoppable. The Don LEE (aka MA Dong-seok) vehicle snatched up 57,000 spectators (USD 450,000) from Saturday and Sunday advance screenings ahead of its Thursday bow. With Showbox behind it and a stronger reaction from critics compared to LEE’s The Villagers, which crashed this weekend after a poor debut start last week, the film should have a stronger showing but with so many LEE vehicles in the marketplace recently there’s a risk of overexposure for the well-liked star.

Unstoppable is the only thing standing in Freddy Mercury’s way, as Bohemian Rhapsody threatens to rise to first place in its fourth week.

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