‘Along With the Gods 2′ wins second weekend, ‘Spy Gone North’ debuts strongly

August 13, 2018
A poster for "Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days" (Yonhap)

A poster for “Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days” (Yonhap)

A poster for "The Spy Gone North" (Yonhap)

A poster for “The Spy Gone North” (Yonhap)

By Shim Sun-ah

SEOUL, Aug. 13 (Yonhap) — “Along With the Gods: The Last 49 Days” continued its dominance of the local box office for a second weekend.

Data from the Korean Film Council showed on Monday that the Korean fantasy action movie sold 1,570,955 tickets from Friday to Sunday for a 12-day cumulative audience of 9.63 million.

Starring Ha Jung-woo, Ju Ji-hoon and Kim Hyang-gi, “The Last 49 Days” is the second installment in the franchise started by the 2017 box office hit “Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds” by the same director, Kim Yong-hwa. The Lotte Entertainment release tells the story of three grim reapers from the first installment meeting the Seongju God (House Guardian God), who remembers their pasts from 1,000 years ago.

“The Spy Gone North,” a Cannes-premiered political thriller directed by Yoon Jong-bin, made a strong debut at No. 2, amassing 1,424,805 views.

The film led by Hwang Jung-min, Lee Sung-min, Cho Jin-woong and Ju Ji-hoon portrays a breathtaking covert operation by a South Korean agent sent to infiltrate the highest ranks of the North Korean leadership.

“Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again,” the sequel to 2008′s all-ABBA jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!” was a distant third with 518,878 views.

Coming in fourth was another new release — Sony Pictures Animation’s “Hotel Transylvania 3: Monster Vacation,” seen by 345,987 people.

Tom Cruise’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” slid three places to fifth, drawing 243,591 moviegoers on its third weekend. Directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the sixth installment in the American spy action franchise follows agent Ethan Hunt and his team as they race against time to recover stolen plutonium after a mission goes wrong.