’Spider-Man’ likely to become most-watched film in theaters this year

Hollywood’s “Spider-Man: No Way Home” by Jon Watts is likely to overtake director Ryoo Seung-wan’s “Escape from Mogadishu,” which sold more than 3.61 million tickets this year.

Ryoo’s film, which is so far the most-watched film this year, was released with support from the Korean Theater Association. The association’s members include the top three multiplex operators: CGV, Lotte Cinema and Megabox.

Earlier in June, the association decided to forgo ticket proceeds until sales reached 50 percent of the total production costs of Ryoo’s new movie. Theaters and film distributors usually split ticket sales 50-50. In forgoing the ticket proceeds, it was a way to encourage local film distributors to release movies amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ticket sales on Thursday for the Hollywood film, which has topped the local box office for nine consecutive days, climbed to 166,307, bringing the total number of ticket sales to more than 3.25 million, according to box office figures released by the Korean Film Council.

There are only five titles in Korea that have surpassed a threshold of 3 million tickets after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The film depicts the story of Spider-Man after his identity is revealed. Spider-Man (Tom Holland) asks Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help with his identity issue. However, Doctor Strange’s spell goes wrong and dangerous foes from other worlds start to appear, forcing Peter to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.

Separately, “The King’s Man” has attracted 46,534 audiences and was ranked No. 2 on the local box office chart as of Thursday.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)