"Eclipse" opens at No. 1 on Korean box office

Vampire epic "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" opened atop Korea's box office on Wednesday with more moviegoers than its two predecessors based on author Stephanie Meyer's best-selling novel.

Figures released by the film's Korean distributor Pan Cinema on Thursday revealed that the threequel sold a total 166,202 tickets at 473 theaters throughout the country, pushing down a slot former daily box office topper "Knight & Day" which stopped short of attracting a fourth of the admits rung up by "Eclipse."

The latest "Twilight" installment is about how Bella (played by Kristen Stewart) is faced with choosing between her love for Edward (played by Robert Pattinson) and friendship with Jacob (played by Taylor Lautner). Bella has to make a choice of staying a human or becoming a vampire.

In the United States, the pic set a new record for first-day box office on Wednesday with 68.5 million dollars on June 30, beating out the previous record of 62 million dollars held by "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" on its opening day last summer.

But "Eclipse," which had collected in 175.3 million by Monday, has failed to overtake its franchise predecessor so far; "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" raked in 72.7 million dollars on its Friday release on November 21 last year and accumulated 178.9 million in six days of its premiere.

"New Moon" holds the record as the movie with the largest single-day domestic gross and highest profit on its opening day in North American film history.

"Twilight" was the first chapter of the series and became an unexpected global hit when it first opened in late 2008. It topped the box offices of several countries on the day of its release including in North America, Italy and Mexico.

Reporter : Lucia Hong luciahong@
Editor : Jessica Kim jesskim@