Tom Cruise has become a regular visitor to South Korea and, while his latest visit was more than a week ago, the impact of his efforts appeared to endure.
His Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning got off to the second strongest start at the Korean box office of any Hollywood movie released this year.
The film grossed $9.75 million between Friday and Sunday, according to Kobis, the tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (Kofic). That represented a 60% market share, earned from some 2,400 screens. In its full opening five days (plus previews), it earned $14.2 million.
The films weekend score is a fraction below Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, which went on to earn $34.8 million. And only Korean blockbuster The Roundup: No Way Out is further ahead, with a $20 million debut.
Elemental, which had been gathering steam over the two previous weekends, earned a still impressive $4.79 million and maintained a 29% market share in its fifth weekend, as it fell to second place.
Elemental has now accumulated $33.3 million, making it the second biggest Hollywood title of 2023 in Korea and the years number five performer so far.
With Mission: Impossible and Elemental accounting for such large shares of the market and available screens, all other titles on release accounted for only a combined 11%.
Chinese re-release My Love came in third with $429,000 and a market share smaller than 3%.
The Roundup: No Way Out slipped to fourth place over the weekend. It earned $321,000 and extended its cumulative total to $82 million.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse took $250,000 for a four-week total of $7.09 million.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, slipped to seventh place in its third weekend. It made $146,000 over the weekend for a cumulative of $6.60 million.
Beau Is Afraid lost week-on-week performance, but gained a place, climbing from tenth to eighth. It earned $64,000 on the weekend and has $423,000 after 11-days on release.
Pinocchio: A True Story was the weekends second highest new release. It released on Thursday and earned $75,000 over four days.
The nationwide aggregate between Friday and Sunday, at $16.4 million, made for the years fourth biggest box office weekend.