‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Is Selling Tickets Too Fast, Forcing South Korea to Stop Pre-Sales

South Korea has quickly become one of the most closely watched markets in the run-up to Spider-Man’s next big-screen outing, with the country’s fans historically showing up in massive numbers for the franchise. That history made this year’s advance ticket rollout feel like a formality more than a story, right up until it became the biggest headline of the week for entirely different reasons.

Presales for ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ opened in South Korea across nearly every premium format available, including IMAX, ScreenX, 4DX, Dolby Cinema, and MX4D, with the film’s ScreenX release marking the first time the format was shot specifically for the technology rather than converted afterward. That demand translated into the best first-day presales revenue for any comic book movie in South Korea this decade, according to tracking account Global Box Office.

That celebration did not last long. Those presales have now been halted entirely in South Korea, following pressure from Korean film industry groups who argued the early ticket sales opened too soon and hurt the country’s already struggling local film industry.

The Korean Film Council abruptly suspended and canceled all ticket presales for the film after Sony opened sales on July 8 before the movie had completed its official age rating classification from the Media Rating Board, a regulatory step every release in the country is required to complete first. More than 103,000 tickets had already been sold before the government backed agency ordered the shutdown, forcing major chains like CGV, Lotte Cinema, and Megabox to process a wave of cancellations and refunds.

Domestic film groups accused the distributor of gaining an unfair commercial advantage by jumping ahead of the required process, with the dispute reigniting long running tension over how much control Hollywood blockbusters exert over Korean screens. South Korea maintains a screen quota system requiring theaters to show domestic films for at least 146 days per year specifically to prevent foreign releases from dominating local cinemas, a policy that has become a flashpoint again given how aggressively this film’s marketing campaign has moved.

The timing has only added to the frustration, since the suspension hit right as South Korea’s monsoon season began, a period that typically drives a major surge in theater attendance and one theater chain had already built its screen allocation plans around. IT teams reportedly worked through the night to disable booking access across ticketing systems and prevent further transactions while the situation was sorted out.

The controversy comes at a moment when the film is already rewriting box office expectations elsewhere, with domestic presales in the United States crossing 40 million dollars and tracking now projecting a domestic opening north of 250 million dollars. Deadline has confirmed the film posted the strongest first day presales in the US in five years, a record previously held by Spider-Man: No Way Home.

‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ stars Tom Holland, Zendaya, and Jacob Batalon, and opens in theaters worldwide on July 31. With South Korean regulators now working through the fallout of this suspension, it remains to be seen whether the country’s presales will resume before release or whether this becomes yet another data point in the ongoing tension between global franchises and local film industry protections.

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