Universal and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer debuted in more than 500 locations in Korea on Tuesday, capitalizing on the Liberation Day national holiday. The epic bowed to $4.3M, capturing 44% market share for the day in a highly competitive environment.
That marks the best Nolan opening day in the market, biggest Hollywood opening of the year there (No. 2 launch of 2023 for all titles), the No. 5 debut day of the pandemic and the No. 4 Universal opening day ever. Presales were outstanding, beating all previous Nolan movies.
Across 1,600 screens, this is the second-widest release for a Nolan title in Korea, only behind Tenet, which came out during the pandemic when there was no other competition.
On 20 Imax screens, Oppenheimer generated 9.4% of the total box office for the day. The CVG Egg score currently stands at a strong 92%. The Korea cume is $5.5M through today (not included in the totals above), dominating with a 42% market share on Wednesday.
In total on Tuesday, the Cillian Murphy-led historical drama added $9.6M in 80 markets. The international box office through Tuesday is $398.3M and $668M globally.
The offshore cume to date is above Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises and more than double Dunkirk, Interstellar, Inception and Tenet at the same point of release.
This is now Nolan’s biggest film of all time in 50 markets including Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, India and Poland. It’s his top non-superhero movie in 62 markets.
Over the weekend, the drama overtook Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the UK to become the third-biggest Imax release of all time. The overall cume there through Wednesday is $59.7M, which is in line with The Dark Knight Rises (-3%) and Dunkirk (+1%).
In Brazil, Oppenheimer topped the lifetime take of The Dark Knight Rises.
Other standouts include Germany at $36.4M, for the biggest Nolan movie ever in the market; France, with a running total of $29.4M through Tuesday, 23% above The Dark Knight Rises at the same point in release; and Australia, with $21.4M to date, 30% above Inception at the same point.
Italy and China are still to release later this month.