{"id":246816,"date":"2026-01-15T22:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/246816\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T22:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:25:08","slug":"park-chan-wooks-no-other-choice-nears-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/246816\/","title":{"rendered":"Park Chan-wook’s ‘No Other Choice’ Nears Records"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPark Chan-wook<\/a>\u2018s No Other Choice<\/a>, which is shortlisted<\/a> for the Oscar International Feature category this year, is poised to be the multi Cannes Film Festival-winning filmmaker\u2019s biggest box office breakout at the North American office in his 34-year directing career.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlready, the dark comedy about a laid-off paper factory manager in Busan, South Korea, who literally begins to \u201ctake out\u201d the competition has become Park\u2019s highest-grossing movie at the domestic box office with $4.2 million surpassing his cult 2003 hit Oldboy ($2.4M lifetime). No Other Choice in its early limited run is holding extremely well in its New York, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Seattle plays, the latter a hub for Asian American moviegoers. The movie is pacing similar to A24s Past Lives ($11.3M) as well as Neon<\/a>\u2018s own five-time Oscar winner Anora ($20.4M) at this point in time.<\/p>\n

\n\tAll of this per sources indicates No Other Choice is bound to reach a final domestic total in the teen-milions, becoming the second highest-grossing South Korean title at the domestic B.O. after Neon\u2019s multi-Oscar-winning Parasite ($53.8M) and ahead of 2007\u2019s Dragon Wars (at $10.9M). The movie is also drawing upscale sophisticated adults and twentysomethings. It has performed solidly in Phoenix, San Diego, Sacramento and Raleigh, NC. The pic, also been boosted by a play in Imax, is playing at 700 sites in its fourth weekend this Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tShould No Other Choice score an Oscar nomination next Thursday, it will rep Park\u2019s first ever.<\/p>\n

\n\tWorldwide, No Other Choice has a shot at taking out Director Park\u2019s highest grossing movie at the global box office as a director, The Handmaiden, which counts north of $38M worldwide. Current running global cume on No Other Choice is close to $27M.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPark Chan-wook<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tTom Quinn, Neon\u2019s CEO and co-founder, says that \u201cOldboy changed my entire career; the way I thought about film and what was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI tried to buy Oldboy three times,\u201d he tells Deadline. Initially that was during his exec days at Samuel Goldwyn in 2003, when he caught the movie in a smoke-filled room in Milan, Italy at the MIFED market. There were no seats available. \u201cI stood there and watched and couldn\u2019t believe what I was seeing,\u201d Quinn adds.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe immediately phoned the Goldwyns saying that they had to buy the movie, including the remake rights for David Lynch. Quinn ultimately won out with rights for the 20th anniversary rerelease in 2023, the pic grossing $1.75M of its domestic $2.4M cume (the rerelease outgrossing the original domestic release). The first time Quinn teamed with Park was on Bong Joon Ho\u2019s 2013 sci-fi movie, Snowpiercer. Park produced that movie. which grossed well north of $82M around the world.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEvery A-list filmmaker will talk about Director Park as either someone who inspired them to become filmmakers or a reference in their own work. Even Bong Joon Ho has mentioned that without Director Park, he wouldn\u2019t have the career that he has,\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo Other Choice is based on Donald E. Westlake\u2019s 1997\u00a0novel\u00a0The Ax. South Korea\u2019s Oscar entry received a nine-minute standing ovation at its world premiere in the main competition at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, then went on to win the inaugural\u00a0International People\u2019s\u00a0Choice\u00a0Award<\/a>\u00a0at the Toronto Film Festival. Neon took rights ahead of its festival run.<\/p>\n

\n\tNo Other Choice also counts a Best Pic nom from the\u00a0Gotham Awards<\/a>\u00a0and a Foreign Language nom from\u00a0Critics Choice<\/a>. Both awards bodies also nominated the adapted screenplay credited to Park, Lee Kyoung-mi, Jahye Lee and Don McKellar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Park Chan-wook\u2018s No Other Choice, which is shortlisted for the Oscar International Feature category this year, is poised…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[93,61,60,270,17453,109374,47608],"class_list":{"0":"post-246816","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-neon","13":"tag-no-other-choice","14":"tag-park-chan-wook"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}