This past weekend told two different stories across Asia’s two biggest film markets. In mainland China, the Minions made a strong entrance and took the top spot. In South Korea, Toy Story 5 quietly held its ground for a third consecutive weekend. Here’s everything that happened across both markets during the weekend of July 3–5.
Minions & Monsters made its China debut this weekend and opened straight at number one, earning $16.4 million from 30,000 screens across the country. It led 27 percent of all showtimes on Saturday and pulled in an estimated $4.6 million on its opening day, Thursday, alone. The opening is comparable to Despicable Me 4 and Toy Story 5‘s China debuts and comfortably above what Minions: The Rise of Gru managed in the same market. China was the film’s biggest international territory this weekend.
The biggest new local release of the weekend was Keep Real, a sci-fi comedy that opened in second place with $10.5 million over the three-day frame, taking its cumulative total, including previews, to $11 million. Written and directed by Xing Wenxiong, the film stars Bai Jingting as a well-meaning superhero who is sent back to his small hometown to form a combat squad, only to find that years of peace have created complicated social networks and deep-rooted local customs he has no idea how to navigate. Wei Xiang plays a local branch director who helps him along the way. It is a satirical, character-driven story, and it clearly found an audience during its opening weekend.
Historical war epic Crossing moved into third place in its second weekend with $6.4 million, bringing its running total to $27.6 million since opening the previous week. A24’s horror film Backrooms held fourth place with $4.7 million, taking its China cumulative total to $14.5 million. Toy Story 5 came in fifth with $3.1 million in its third weekend in the country, pushing its total Chinese gross to $36.9 million. The overall mainland China box office generated $47.8 million over the weekend. The 2026 year-to-date total now stands at $2.61 billion, down 40.3 percent from the same period in 2025.
Despite the year-to-date decline, there are encouraging signs for the summer ahead. According to CGTN, citing tracker Maoyan, China’s summer box office has already crossed 2 billion yuan (around $294 million) as school holidays begin. A wide range of genres is drawing audiences this summer, including local titles such as All Wishes Come True and The Decisive Moment, alongside international releases including The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which are still to come.
Over in South Korea, Toy Story 5 stayed at the top for a third consecutive weekend, earning $2.8 million from 429,042 admissions over the three-day frame. That gave it a 38.6 percent share of the total Korean market. Since opening on June 17, the film has now earned a cumulative $14.8 million from more than 2.2 million admissions in the country.
Korean thriller The Eyes continued to perform well in its second weekend, earning $2.4 million from 359,845 admissions. The film is a Korean remake of the 2011 Spanish thriller Julia’s Eyes, starring Shin Min-ah and Kim Nam-hee, and has now collected a cumulative $5.5 million from 842,702 viewers since its June 24 release. It is shaping up to be one of the stronger local performers of the summer.
Zombie thriller Colony, which has been one of the biggest Korean films of the year, remained on the chart and continued to hold strong, with its cumulative total now well past $39 million since its May release. The overall South Korean market generated $7.3 million over the weekend, slightly up from the previous weekend’s $6.9 million, a positive sign for the market as it heads into the peak summer season.
Toy Story 5 has now crossed $764 million worldwide and is firmly on track to become the highest-grossing film in the franchise, eventually surpassing Toy Story 4‘s $1.07 billion. Minions & Monsters, meanwhile, has already reached $159 million globally after just one full weekend, with Asia—particularly China—playing a key role in supporting its worldwide performance as its domestic run has been softer than expected.
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