When the Korean film Exhuma was released earlier in 2024, it had earned more than six million admissions by the 11th day of its release.
Now in news earlier today, the Korean Film Council reports actor Ma Dong Seok‘s new action film The Roundup: Punishment has garnered over 6 million admissions in just nine days (a total of 6,421,181 admissions so far).
In other words, two days faster than Exhuma — making it the the fastest Korean film of 2024 to hit that number.
And, while that is an amazing record, and the cast and staff of the film should feel incredibly proud, it feeds into what I have been saying since The Roundup: Punishment grabbed its first 2 million admissions four days after it premiered.
The crime action film will not reach the now 11.8 million admissions that Exhuma has earned since it released on February 22nd.
A feat that has made the film the sixteenth highest-grossing South Korean film of all-time.
Why will The Roundup: Punishment not reach 11.8 million admissions?
It all boils down to the gap between the number of days in which The Roundup: Punishment is grabbing new admissions and the number of days Exhuma managed to do it in.
A gap that is closing quite quickly as The Roundup: Punishment only managed to grab 6 million admissions two days before Exhuma reached that point.
Prior to this, the film had managed to reach the 4 million admissions four days faster than Exhuma.
Meaning, within 2 million admissions, the gap has already closed by 2 days.
That slowing down suggests by the time The Roundup:Punishment hits 8 million releases, it will have probably closed the gap and arrived at that number in the same time frame as Exhuma.
Considering Exhuma then managed to earn 3.8 million more admissions above that 8 million point at a steady pace, while The Roundup: Punishment‘s ticket sales are now slowing down, likely means the Ma Dong Seok film will probably end its meteoric admissions rise around the 8 or 9 million mark.
Still an incredibly successful run for a film that Ma Dong Seok wanted to just “break even” (around 3.2 million admissions), as it has already garnered almost double that.
The Roundup: Punishment stars Ma Dong Seok, Kim Mu Yeol, Park Ji Hwan and Lee Dong Hwi.
The action film released in movie theaters in the United States today, and will likely be a big hit there too.