Koo Kyo-hwan and Moon Ga-young’s romance "Once We Were Us" is off to a hot start, drawing more than 100,000 moviegoers for two days in a row.
Opening on December 31, "Once We Were Us" sold 110,326 tickets on day one and 100,059 on January 1, pushing its running total to 229,196 admissions. With "Avatar: Fire and Ash" and "Zootopia 2" firmly holding the top two spots, the Korean romance is sitting at No. 3 on the box office chart―the highest among local titles.
That pace is notable for a melodrama, a genre that typically leans less on theatrical dollars and more on downstream revenue from streamers and TVOD. Sustaining six-figure daily admissions on back-to-back days suggests broader playability beyond the core romance crowd.
Strong press reactions from early screenings and buzzy word of mouth are fueling the momentum. Audiences’ trust in the source material―the 2018 Taiwanese "Us and Them"―combined with standout turns from Koo and Moon is helping the remake connect.
All eyes are also on its rivalry with "Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight," another youth-driven romance adapted from a Japanese hit. While "Once We Were Us" has the edge in recent daily turnout, the earlier-opening "Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight" still leads in cumulative admissions for now.
The holiday bump has faded, but if "Once We Were Us" carries this heat through its first two weekends, overtaking "Even If This Love Disappears from the World Tonight"―which currently sits at 540,000 admissions―looks within reach.
"Once We Were Us" follows Eun-ho and Jung-won, former lovers who reunite by chance a decade later and unpack the traces of a love they once shared. It’s a Korea-set remake of "Us and Them" (2018), reinterpreted for local sensibilities.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kim Ji-hye)
댓글