This weekend past’s SA box office saw a magical duel between Harry Potter prequel Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them and Marvel’s Doctor Strange, and as predicted last week, the good Doctor got avada kedavra’d off the top spot. What was surprising though is the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Sorcerer Supreme also lost out to some Afrikaans birds (and no, not the type you find frequenting Benoni bars).
Fantastic Beasts opened locally with an impressive R6.51 million, reinvigorating a box office that had been stagnating over the last few weeks. It’s still behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2‘s R8.4 million opening back in 2011 (at the time, the third biggest opening of all time in South Africa), but if you consider that it’s done in more in weekend than most of the other Top 10 entries in their entire lifetime, then it’s not bad at all.
Meanwhile, local romantic dramedy Vir Die Voels, followed on some strong word of mouth to claim the no.2 spot with a $1.16 million opening. That’s not a massive opening by any stretch of the imagination, but the film – based on the true story of a Huis Genoot reader – has been pulling in solid reviews. Maybe it will have the legs to keep making money.
Unfortunately, for the other two new entries last week, The Snow Queen 2 and Maggie’s Plan, you would actually have to look outside the top 10 as both debuted with barely a blip on the box office radar with R262,150 and R83,150 respectively.
Here’s what the rest of the chart looks like:
- 01. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (NE)
Weekend gross: R 6.51 million
Percentage change: NA
Total gross: R 6.51 million
- 02. Vir Die Voels (NE)
Weekend gross: R 1.16 million
Percentage change: NA
Total gross: R 1.16 million
- 03. Doctor Strange (LW: 1)
Weekend gross: R 1.10 million
Percentage change: -32.9%
Total gross: R 13.74 million
- 04. Storks (LW: 2)
Weekend gross: R 1 million
Percentage change: -19.1%
Total gross: R 4.85 million
- 05. Max Steel (LW: 4)
Weekend gross: R 633,243
Percentage change: -7.8%
Total gross: R 1.62 million
- 06. Trolls (LW: 3)
Weekend gross: R 614,941
Percentage change: -18.8%
Total gross: R 10.14 million
- 07. When The Bough Breaks (LW: 7)
Weekend gross: R 602,356
Percentage change: +1.3%
Total gross: R 4.57 million
- 08. Blood Father (LW: 5)
Weekend gross: R 495,586
Percentage change: -25.3%
Total gross: R 1.53 million
- 09. The Accountant (LW: 6)
Weekend gross: R 393,909
Percentage change: -35.7%
Total gross: R 6.8 million
- 10. Skiptrace (LW: 2)
Weekend gross: R 347,007
Percentage change: -5.1%
Total gross: R 720,556
(LW: Last Week, NE: New Entry)
Last Updated: November 30, 2016
