The film was released on 26 July 2017 in South Korea.[10] According to the Korean Film Council, The Battleship Island created a new record with reaching 970,516 viewers on its opening night.[29] During the first weekend (July 28 to 30) since the movie was released, an audience of 2.5 million was attracted.[30] This resulted with an earning of USD 18.57 million from 2027 screen which is a 37.1% of total movie theaters in the country.[31] This marked the first time in the country that a movie had been released on more than 2,000 screens, creating controversy over screen dominance by conglomerates.[32][33]

During the first five days the number of tickets sale exceeded 4 million and earned USD 27.9 million in total, therefore the production cost of around US$21 million was already retrieved.[34]

In its second week of release, the film was surpassed by the historical action drama film A Taxi Driver. By the end of the eighth day since the film was released, it was playing at 1108 venues with a total of 5.18 million viewers.[35][36] The number of admissions surpassed 6 million on the 12th day of its run.[37] As of September 26, or two months after opening in the box office, overall admission was 6.58 million.