The 20th-anniversary re-release of Park Chan-Wook’s iconic 2003 South Korean thriller “Oldboy” has been a success for distributor Neon.
The film grossed an estimated $495,000 on 250 screens this weekend and is set to cross $1 million in its first week. That surpasses the $707,000 entire gross the film’s original 2005 North American release scored with distributor Metro Tartan Film.
It’s also decidedly rare for re-releases to top $1 million at the domestic box office, with specific Studio Ghibli titles and heavily publicised James Cameron film re-releases being among the most notable.
Restored and remastered, the film follows Oh Dae-Su (Choi Min-sik) who has been kidnapped and imprisoned for fifteen years. He is suddenly released and must find his captor, and uncover the reason for his imprisonment, all in the span of five days.
The first South Korean film to win the Grand Prix in Cannes, the film took in $15 million worldwide in its original run. Here the re-release reportedly performed strongest in San Francisco, New York City, and Los Angeles.
It also fared better than other speciality openings this weekend such as sci-fi film “Landscape with Invisible Hand” which grossed $93,000 over the weekend, and the horror film “Birth/Rebirth” which snagged $48,770.
Source: Deadline
