Marvel's 'Eternals' dominates S. Korean box office in first weekend

Marvel's "Eternals" easily topped the South Korean box office over the weekend, pushing director Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic "Dune" to a distant second, data showed Monday.

"Eternals" drew an attendance of 1.138 million from Friday to Sunday, accounting for 82.4 percent of the period's total ticket sales at local theaters, according to the data from the Korean Film Council.

The film had topped the 1 million mark in attendance, four days after its release Wednesday, for an accumulated total of 1.614 million as of Sunday. This is more than the first-week total of 1.365 million by "Black Widow," South Korea's most-viewed foreign film for this year to date.

Directed by Oscar-winning Chloe Zhao, "Eternals" is part of Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, telling the story of the Eternals, a group of immortal superheroes who fight against their evil counterparts, the Deviants, to protect Earth after thousands of years of hiding.

South Korean-born actor Ma Dong-seok, also known as Don Lee, stars in the film as one of the Eternals, becoming the first actor from the Korean entertainment scene to take a lead role in a Marvel superhero film.

"Dune," released on Oct. 20, fell a notch to a distant second with 126,000 admissions.

Boosted by the box-office success of "Eternals," total admissions for local theaters reached 1.38 million last weekend, more than double that of the previous week with 588,000. (Yonhap)