Oh hey, look. The Lion King is top of the South African box office chart… again. Big surprise. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s six weeks on the trot now (do lions even trot?) for the Disney remake, and I have to admit I was getting a bit bored of reporting on this. At least this weekend past brought a bit of something special to The Lion King’s seemingly indefatigable dominance as the R4.7 million it earned was enough to push the film past the R100 million mark, becoming only the third film in SA box office history to do so (the other two also being Disney offerings in Avengers: Endgame and Black Panther).
With The Lion King not willing to share its crown, that means that newcomer Angel Has Fallen had to settle for 2nd place. The Gerard Butler-led action thriller threequel had a respectable debut with R3.7 million, as it in turn kept Hobbs & Show in 3rd place with R2.6 million. Jumping down considerably in the revenue stakes, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, the other wide(-ish) new release this weekend past had a rather weak 4th place debut as it barely made it to half a million.
There were two new titles that hit this Friday past, but only in very limited theatres as they landed in 13th and 14th place respectively. But while the former, local drama Ander Mens, did nothing really worthy of mention, Ster-Kinekor’s release of Apocalpyse Now: Final Cut actually drew respectable numbers. While opening in just 7 venues, its R123k gave it the fourth-highest per-theatre-average on the charts. Hopefully, this prompts local distributors to bring us more such special screenings.
Let’s see what the rest of the SA box office 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
The Lion King,R4.7 million,-21%,R101 million,1st
Angel Has Fallen,R3.7million,NE,R3.7 million,NE
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw,R2.6 million,-31%,R31.8 million,2nd
47 Meters Down: Uncaged,R504 228,NE,R504 228,NE
Spider-Man: Far From Home,R498 159,-11%,R34 million,3rd
Playmobil: The Movie,R238 138,-30%,R666 667,4th
Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark,R188 424,-29%,R1.1 million,6th
Toy Story 4,R177 368,-2%,R23.1 million,10th
The Secret Life of Pets 2,R177 307,-10%,R16.3 million,9th
Blinded By the Light,R169 591,-36%,R548 696,5th
[/table]
NE = New Entry
