'Black Widow' becomes highest grossing film so far this year

"Black Widow" surpassed 2.3 million ticket sales, Thursday. Courtesy of Walt Disney Co. Korea

By Lee Gyu-lee

The superhero film "Black Widow" has become the top-grossing film at this year's local box office, scoring the highest ticket sales so far.

The Disney and Marvel Studios movie, starring Scarlett Johansson, sold about 2.3 million tickets as of Thursday morning, earning about 23 billion won ($20 million).

This beats the previous record set by "F9," the latest installment of the "Fast and Furious" franchise. The film has sold about 2.29 million tickets, garnering 22 billion won ($19 million).

Since opening with ticket sales a little under 200,000 on July 7, "Black Widow" has topped the box office chart for almost two consecutive weeks before slipping to second place on Wednesday.

The film surpassed $200 million worldwide on its opening weekend.

Directed by Cate Shortland, the film is set between the cinematic timeline of the 2016 film "Captain America: Civil War" and the 2018 film "Avengers: Infinity War." It follows one of the Avengers, Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), also known as Black Widow, facing her traumatic past.

She reunites with her adoptive sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) to team up to destroy a malicious top-secret facility called the Red Room that trains young girls as assassins.

The top spot on Wednesday's box office chart went to "The Boss Baby: Family Business," the sequel to Universal's 2017 film, "The Boss Baby."

The DreamWorks animated feature landed on top on its premiere day with about 58,000 tickets sold here, grossing 505.6 million won ($439,000).

Directed by Tom McGrath, the family comedy picks up on the story of two brothers ― Tim Templeton (James Marsden) who became a stay-at-home dad, and Ted Templeton Jr. (Alec Baldwin), previously the titular "Boss Baby," who became a successful entrepreneur.

The two estranged brothers come together when they join forces with Tim's daughter, a secret agent at Baby Corp, to go undercover as babies to fight off an evil genius who is turning toddlers into brats.

The Korean-Thai horror film "The Medium" took the third spot on the chart, selling about 25,000 tickets.

The film, which hit theaters last Wednesday, has sold about 650,000 tickets, collecting 6.7 billion won ($5.82 million).

Co-produced by filmmaker Na Hong-jin and Thai director Banjong Pisanthanakun, the mockumentary revolves around a family in Thailand's northeastern Isan region who have been serving benevolent goddess Ba Yan for generations. The family's faith is put to the test when they suspect their daughter, the next-in-line to become the goddess' shaman, might be possessed by a demon.

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