"Rebound" tried to ride the halo of the ten-million-admissions hit "The King's Warden" but couldn’t meet expectations.
Re-released three years after its original run, "Rebound" drew just 6,191 moviegoers over three days. It played on about 167 screens nationwide, the sixth-largest screen count among current titles.
Set at the 2012 National High School Basketball Championship, "Rebound" follows a new coach and six overlooked players from the weakest team as they sprint through an eight-day, against-all-odds run.
Originally released in 2023, the film finished with 700,000 admissions and failed to break even. Its return to theaters came on the heels of "The King's Warden"’s recent 16 million-admissions success ― a re-release that spotlighted director Jang Hang-jun’s rise from a box-office miss to a “ten-million-admissions” director in just three years.
On Saturday, Jang Hang-jun and lead cast members Ahn Jae-hong, Lee Shin-young, Jung Jin-woon, Kim Taek, Jung Gun-joo, Kim Min, and Ahn Ji-ho greeted audiences across five theaters in Seoul.
But passion didn’t equal performance. Aside from sharing Jang Hang-jun as director, "The King's Warden" and "Rebound" have little in common ― and it’s tough for a three-year-old title to generate the same hype and attention as a brand-new release.
(SBS Entertainment News | Kim Ji-hye)