Korean star Park Seo Joon and IU’s movie Dream, tops box office on the first day of its release

Dream, the Korean film starring actor Park Seo Joon and singer-actress IU, premiered at the top of the box office in South Korea, on the first day of its release.

Fans are congratulating the duo for the day one success of the movie, released on April 26.

According to Korean media reports, the Korean Film Council (KOFIC) said that Dream had sold 93,417 tickets and grossed $555,830 (Dh2 million) from 1,229 screens on the first day of release to top the daily box office.

Including the pre-opening screening, the movie has recorded 101,277 in total admissions and a gross of $604,325 (Dh2.2 million) to date.

Directed by Lee Byeong-heon, Dream tells the story of a group of people playing soccer for the first time for the Homeless World Cup.

Park Seo Joon, who is famous for his roles in K-dramas such as Fight For My Way, Itaewon Class, and What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim, stars as Yoon Hong Dae, a professional soccer player on disciplinary probation in the movie.

He becomes the coach of the ragtag soccer team, while IU plays producing director Lee So Min who is making a documentary about the team.

Who is IU?

Born in 1993, Lee Ji-eun, known professionally as IU, is a South Korean singer-songwriter and actress.

Her stage name IU is derived from the words, ‘I’ and ‘You’ – symbolising that the two become one, with music.

Working under the entertainment label Loen Entertainment, she first released a mini album called Lost and Found in 2008. She then went on to release her first full album called Growing Up, in the following year.

The singer gained a huge fan following before making her acting debut in 2011 in the television drama ‘Dream High’. She quickly graduated to lead roles in K-dramas such as ‘You’re the Best, Lee Soon Shin’ and ‘Beautiful Man’. More recently, she was seen starring in popular hits such as ‘My Mister’ and ‘Hotel Del Luna’.

Though IU made her silver screen debut in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s award-winning ‘Broker’ last year, according to South Korean news website Koreaherald.com, she considers Lee Byeong-heon’s sports comedy to be her first long feature film debut.

“It was so fortunate for me to debut in a long feature film with such a kind cast and nice fellow actors. It was so meaningful for me, allowing me to work with a beginner’s mindset on the movie set,” IU said in an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul on April 20.

Working for the first time with the director of Korea’s highest-grossing 2019 comedy, ‘Extreme Job’, IU said she learned a lot during the filming process.

“My experience is that director Lee really maximises showing the charms of each character and that’s why I felt that not just So-min, but all the other characters in ‘Dream’ are so worth watching. So, for me, I really wanted to participate,” IU said, according to the report.

According to a recent report on the news website koreatimes.co.kr, the singer-actress expressed how excited she was to be paired with Park Seo-joon for her first major movie role.

"What I can say about Park is he's very collaborative. On set, he always wanted to know about director Lee's opinion and just pushed himself to better portray the character. He was a constant inspiration to me," she said.

Seo-joon also said that he enjoyed the experience of working with IU.

"I'm a huge fan of IU, so I wondered what it would be like to act alongside her. She was beyond my expectations and by the end of filming, I wished we had more scenes together," he said, according to the report.

At the Korean box office, ‘Dream’ beat ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’, which also premiered on the same day, and was one of the top-grossing movies worldwide.