Tazza's Fourth Film Reaches 1 Million, but Topping the Original Remains a Long Shot

Tazza: Song of Beelzebub crossed 1 million cumulative admissions on the afternoon of September 30, eight days after its September 23 opening. The milestone makes it the 11th Korean film released this year to reach that threshold, a count that reflects a cautiously recovering domestic box office rather than an exceptional outlier.

The film is the fourth installment in the Tazza franchise, which began in 2006 with the Choi Dong-hoon-directed original. That first film drew 5.69 million admissions; Tazza: The Hidden Card (2014) followed with 4.02 million, and Tazza: One-Eyed Jack (2019) brought in 2.23 million. The series has traced a steady decline in audience size across each entry, which gives Song of Beelzebub a clear ceiling to worry about and a modest floor to build from.

What the film is about

Based on the manhwa by illustrator Heo Young-man, the film follows Jang Tae-young (played by Byun Yo-han), a man who built his fortune through an online casino operation, as he pursues revenge against Park Tae-young (Noh Jae-won), a childhood friend who betrayed him. The two are drawn back together on a global gambling circuit. The premise updates the franchise's signature card-sharping world into a contemporary online gaming context, a meaningful shift in setting given how much the industry itself has changed since 2006.

Director Choi Guk-hee, whose previous credits include Default (2018) and Life Is Beautiful (2022), helms the project. The supporting cast includes Jo Woo-jin, Yoon Kyung-ho, Miyoshi Ayaka, and Moon Ji-hoon, the rapper known as Swings.

Audience response and what comes next

The CGV Egg Index, which aggregates verified audience scores from ticket purchasers, sits at 93%, a solid reading that suggests word-of-mouth is broadly positive. On the day the 1 million mark was crossed, advance bookings stood at roughly 48,300 seats as of 5 p.m., pointing toward continued momentum through the first weekend of October.

Distributor CJ ENM has not commented publicly on a target, but at the current pace the film is plausible to reach 1.5 million admissions. Whether it can recover the franchise's earlier scale, let alone challenge the 2006 original's 5.69 million, is a different question. The downward trend across three sequels is a structural pattern more than a one-film anomaly, and reversing it would require the kind of sustained run that even a strong opening week does not guarantee.