It’s been a while since we’ve done a SA box office report. Blame it on the lingering festive season laziness if you want, but for some reason the local box office numbers have been coming in slower and slower, making this tougher to do. But we’re going to try anyway. So here’s what you may have missed over the last month: Jumanji made big bank… and that’s about it. It would seem that locals barely cared about any other major release since December, including even Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. That all changed this weekend past though thanks to Bad Boys for Life.
2020’s first major box office surprise, Bad Boys for Life continues to surpass expectations around the world. It debuted in SA this Friday past to the tune of R14 million, which is definitely not the biggest opening but is sizably larger than Jumanji’s R10.3 million or Star Wars’ R7.2 million debuts. Speaking of Jumanji, it’s still hanging around in second place with R1.6 million and is, unsurprisingly, the largest earner on the chart at the moment with a R64 million total. Dolittle rounds out the top three with another R1.1 million.
You have to skip over 1917 in fourth place to get the second newcomer Bombshell. The real-life drama only had a limited opening though (43 cinemas compared to Bad Boys’ 126) and couldn’t crack R1 million. At least it did better than final newcomer Arctic Dogs. Even for a film that just hit 58 screens, the animated family adventure tanked locally as it debuted to a measly R329k.
Let’s see what the rest of the South African chart looks like:
[table ai=”1/No.” class=”table table-striped” tablesorter=”1″]
Movie Name, Weekend gross, Percentage change, Local gross, Last Week’s Position
Bad Boys for Life,R14 million,NE,R14 million,NE
Jumanji: The Next Level,R10.3 million,-20%,R64 million,1st
Dolittle,R1.1 million,-40%,R7.5 million,2nd
1917,R996 627,-41%,R3.4 million,3rd
Bombshell,R778 233,NE,R778 233,NE
Frozen II,R652 880,-15%,R55.4 million,4th
Spies in Disguise,R532 279,-24%,R12 million,5th
Arctic Dogs,R329 733,NE,R329 733,NE
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,R194 552,-64%,R23 million,6th
The Grudge,R176 891,-28%,R504 944,9th
[/table]
NE = New Entry
