Korea’s box office has ‘Hope’ after ‘The King’s Warden’ ruled sales for first-half rebound

From sleeper hits like “The King’s Warden” and “Salmokji: Whispering Water” to Hollywood A-listers Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway making their first visits to Seoul for “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” Korean cinephiles have had plenty to be excited about in the first half of 2026.

There's more to come. High-budget domestic blockbusters are lined up for the peak summer and holiday seasons, and Christopher Nolan and the cast of “The Odyssey” are set to visit Korea in August. The packed slate comes as Korea’s box office shows its strongest signs of recovery since the Covid-19 pandemic, though the Korean Film Council (Kofic) has warned that fewer releases have left the market more dependent on individual breakout hits.

Leading the lineup for the second half of the year is “Hope,” set for release on Wednesday. The sci-fi action thriller from Na Hong-jin, the director behind “The Wailing” (2016) and “The Chaser” (2008), premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Expectations are already high. "Hope" reportedly cost more than 50 billion won ($33.1 million) to make, making it Korea’s most expensive film to date, and set a new record for overseas distribution rights. Presales for the movie topped this year’s advance ticket sales chart at the fastest pace of any release this year as soon as reservations opened, according to Kofic data, accounting for 38.2 percent of all presales as of Friday.

The anticipation follows a first half marked by a strong showing from local films. According to Kofic, admissions for Korean films during the January-to-June period rose 74.9 percent to 37.37 million from 21.36 million a year earlier, while revenue climbed 81.7 percent to 370.2 billion won from 203.7 billion won. 

The broader box office also showed clear signs of recovery, even as the market remains below pre-pandemic levels. Kofic has yet to release its integrated second quarter report, but data from the first three months of the year showed revenue and admissions from both domestic and international films reached 73.2 percent and 60.3 percent, respectively, of their 2017-to-2019 first quarter averages. Still, both figures were the highest since 2020.

The recovery remains uneven. In its first quarter report, Kofic said that “the size of the market is increasingly being determined by the box office performance of a single film," due to fewer releases because of the decline in film production after the pandemic. The number of films that made it to theaters during the January-to-June period fell to 217 from 240 from last year.

Much of the first quarter growth came from one film: Jang Hang-jun’s period drama “The King’s Warden,” which, after it was released in February, generated 151.8 billion won in revenue, or 47.7 percent of the January-to-March period’s total. It drew 15.73 million admissions, accounting for 49.3 percent of the quarter’s attendance.

The industry still has some of its strongest months ahead. In Korea, the summer period and the country’s major autumn holidays are typically among the biggest box office windows of the year. In 2025, the first half of the year accounted for 39 percent of annual box office revenue, while the second half generated 61 percent, according to Kofic, with July and August alone making up nearly a quarter of both annual revenue and admissions.

“Hope” is not the only title carrying expectations. CGV, Korea’s largest movie theater chain, saw a rush of demand Thursday morning when it opened advance ticket sales for “The Odyssey,” following the announcement that Nolan, Matt Damon and Charlize Theron would visit Korea for the film’s Aug. 5 release. The company’s app saw queues and server errors as customers rushed to buy tickets, with opening-day tickets and even a 6:30 a.m. slot for IMAX screenings selling out at CGV's busy Yongsan I'Park Mall branch in central Seoul.

Then there is “Tazza: The Song of Beelzebub,” the final installment in the film series based on cartoonist Huh Young-man’s “Tazza” comics, set for release around Chuseok, Korea's autumn harvest holiday that falls in September this year. Also headed to theaters for Chuseok is “Assassins,” a crime thriller inspired by a true story starring Ryu Hae-jin of “The King’s Warden,” Park Hae-il from "Decision to Leave" (2022) and Lee Min-ho of "Omniscient Reader: The Prophet" (2025).

There are also huge franchise movies from the "Spiderman," "Dune" and "The Avengers" series. And while without a box office run, there's also Netflix-exclusive "Possible Love," Academy Award-shortlisted "Burning" (2018) director Lee Chang-dong's first feature film in more than eight years.

The government is also trying to keep audiences coming to theaters. Starting Wednesday, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism began distributing 6,000 won movie ticket discount coupons, its second round of such coupons this year following a first batch in May. According to the ministry, box office revenue rose 47.9 percent in the week after the first round of coupons was distributed compared with the previous week.

BY KIM JU-YEON [[email protected]]