The film 'The Odyssey 2026' has driven a prolonged box office run and created a boom in theaters, breaking the 10 million audience mark and demonstrating its influence across Korean society.
In particular, 'The Odyssey 2026' has held the No. 1 overall reservation rate for 31 consecutive days, surpassed 9 million viewers on the 27th day after release, and today (6) — 33 days after release — achieved the milestone of 10 million viewers.
Riding the wave of its box office heat, interest related to 'The Odyssey 2026' has spread to many fields. The area that has attracted the most attention is books.
Following the success of 'The Odyssey 2026', books related to the original work have also drawn attention, and accordingly major offline bookstores set up separate 'Odysseia' sections to gather related books in one place, while online bookstores created a dedicated 'The Odyssey 2026' category to help readers compare original texts and more easily understand the Odyssey myth.
According to Kyobo Book Centre, in July sales of books that include names such as 'The Odyssey 2026' and 'Odysseia' increased by more than about 600% year on year, and demand continues across introductory books as well as children's and young adult books.
In particular, among people in their 20s and 30s, demand is rising for the comic book series 'Greek and Roman myths' that was popular in the past. In addition, Hong Eun-young's 'Greek and Roman myths in comics,' which was a bestseller in this generation's childhood, is so popular that a complete set is traded for around 1 million won.
Moreover, because Hong Eun-young's 'Greek and Roman myths in comics' is currently out of print and can only be bought used, demand appears to be growing.
In addition, the animation 'Olympus Guardian,' jointly produced by Gana Publishing, which published 'Greek and Roman myths in comics,' and domestic companies including SBS, has been revived. As 'The Odyssey 2026' continued to be popular after its release, the YouTube channel 'SBS old variety shows - Baekneung' ran a remastered version of 'Olympus Guardian,' a 39-episode series that aired from December 2002, as a '24-hour live streaming' from the 14th of last month until 2:25 a.m. on the 31st.
The live streaming attracted more than 2,000 viewers even in the early morning hours, and even two weeks after the stream began, more than 300 viewers joined on weekday afternoons and continued communicating through steady chat activity.
As interest in 'The Odyssey 2026' continues, some theaters face dilemmas. Director Christopher Nolan shot the entire runtime of 'The Odyssey 2026' using IMAX film cameras for the first time in film history, which has created strong demand among domestic audiences to see 'The Odyssey 2026' in IMAX theaters.
However, CGV Yongsan I'Park Mall IMAX (commonly known as Yongsan IMAX) is the only place in the country that can reproduce the original 1.43:1 aspect ratio. As a result, tickets for 'The Odyssey 2026' screened at Yongsan IMAX sold out quickly as soon as they opened, and scalped ticket prices also surged rapidly.
On ticket transfer platforms, tickets for 'The Odyssey 2026' showing at Yongsan IMAX are being sold for up to 180,000 won (per ticket), and resale sites show traces of transactions as high as 300,000 won.
As scalped ticket prices rose and more consumers were unable to obtain tickets, CGV posted a notice on the 27th of last month saying it would temporarily adjust the number of tickets available for reservation at Yongsan IMAX.
According to the notice, CGV limited reservations for films shown at Yongsan IMAX to a maximum of four tickets per screening and a maximum of four tickets per day, and said the number of tickets that can be reserved for other auditoriums remains the same as before.
CGV said the adjustment is temporary and may change or end depending on operating conditions, and added that it will continuously monitor abnormal reservation routes and ticket resales for profit and do its best to provide more customers with stable reservation opportunities.
The box office frenzy for 'The Odyssey 2026', which is influencing not only the screen but also society and culture, shows no sign of cooling and is expected to continue. As the 'The Odyssey 2026' syndrome continues, the box office run of 'The Odyssey 2026', which surpassed 10 million viewers, shows no signs of stopping.
[Photo] Universal Pictures, Gana Publishing, YouTube capture
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