hankyoreh

Director Bong Joon-ho’s new film "The Host" (Korean title: Monster) has attracted about 1.9 million viewers across the nation in three days after being released Thursday, setting a box-office record.

The sci-fi film’s box-office draw broke the record previously held by "Taegukgi," which two years ago attracted 1 million viewers in three days.

Even before its release, tickets for "The Host" sold at nearly 95-percent theater capacity on web sites such as Max Movie and Interpark, breaking a record for domestically-made films.

The number of spectators of the first day of release was about 449,000 across the nation, breaking the record also previously held by "Taegukgi."

Choi Yong-bae, representative of Chungeorahm Film, which made the movie, said, "I thought the movie would be successful, but this is more than my expectations. Considering the number of viewers on Saturdays is similar to the number on Sundays, more than 2.6 million people are expected to see the movie during the first weekend of its release." Among movies which attracted more than 10 million viewers until now, it took five days for Taegukgi to attract 2 million spectators, while it took last winter’s hit "The King and the Clown" seven days to draw that number.

"The Host" will be released in Japan and other Asian countries on or near September 2.