Los Angeles, Nov 1 (IANS): South Korean cinemas are anticipating a boost from November 1 as the country moves to a policy of living with Covid-19. In the last weekend before the policy's implementation, 'Dune' and 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage' swapped positions at the top of the Korean box office. 'Dune' rose to first place in its second weekend of release.

'Dune', which was released on October 20, dropped by only 12 per cent in its second weekend. It recorded $2.25 million, for an 11-day cumulative of $6.86 million, according to data from Kobis, the box-office tracking service operated by the Korean Film Council (KOFIC).

'Venom 2' took a steeper fall of 45 per cent in its third week of release, and added $1.65 million over the weekend. Since its October 13 outing in Korea, it has accumulated $16.7 million.

Third place over the weekend belonged to new release 'Ron's Gone Wrong' with $485,000 over the weekend and $644,000 over its opening five days.

None of the scores were representative of the kinds of performance that made South Korea the world's fourth largest box-office market in 2019. The nationwide aggregate was an anemic $5.08 million. That is only half of the best-scoring weekends earlier this year and a small fraction of the pre-pandemic era.