Home Entertainment Local Weekend Box Office Chart – Monster Trucks drives over the competition

Local Weekend Box Office Chart – Monster Trucks drives over the competition

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America may be about to get an internet meme of a President, right as we already have our own, but there are still vast differences between our two countries. And you have to look no further than this week’s box office charts to confirm those differences. While Monster Trucks flopped badly in its domestic market, it somehow managed to debut at the top spot here in South Africa. I guess locals didn’t get the memo that it’s actually not a good film.

The kiddie-skewed adventure film – infamously based off the movie pitch of a four-year old – topped the South African box office with a R1.41 million debut. Now let’s be realistic here: That’s actually a dismal opening. Even middling movies like Assassin’s Creed opened with double that, whereas a  juggernaut like Rogue One pulled in close to R8 million on its debut. However, R1.415 million is still at the very least about half a million more than I was expecting.

So how did a critically panned movie with a limp box office debut end up in the #1 spot? Simple. Everything else was worse. The only other two wide releases were factual drama Patriots Day and coming-of-age fantasy A Monster Calls, both movies with really good word of mouth (one of those mouths were ours). Unfortunately neither of the movies could even manage to hit the six-figure mark, with A Monster Calls not even making it to half a million.

If I had to hazard a guess as to the root cause for the poor overall box office earnings, I would have to say that both parents and kids were probably too busy covering brand new schoolbooks over the weekend. Stupid school getting in the way of respectable box office stats.

Here’s what the rest of the chart looked like:

Here’s what the full Top 10 chart looks like:

  • 01. Monster Trucks (NE)

Weekend gross: R1.415 million
Percentage change: NA
Total local gross: R1.415 million

  • 02. Passengers (LW: 2)

Weekend gross: R1.329 million
Percentage change: -43.3%
Total local gross: R10.887  million

  • 03. Sing (LW: 1)

Weekend gross: R1.323 million
Percentage change: -54.1%
Total local gross: R22.706 million

  • 04. Why Him? (LW: 5)

Weekend gross: R1.105 million
Percentage change: -39%
Total local gross: R4.402 million

  • 05. Ballerina (LW: 3)

Weekend gross: R955,438
Percentage change: -56.6%
Total local gross: R4.36 million

  • 06. Assassin’s Creed (LW: 4)

Weekend gross: R902,214
Percentage change: -52.9%
Total gross: R15.996 million

  • 07. Patriots Day (NE)

Weekend gross: R848,394
Percentage change: NA
Total local gross: R848,394

  • 08. Hacksaw Ridge (LW: 7)

Weekend gross: R661,512
Percentage change: -29.9%
Total local gross: R3.882 million

  • 09. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (LW: 6)

Weekend gross: R591,623
Percentage change: +60.3%
Total local gross: R25.083 million

  • 10. A Monster Calls (NE)

Weekend gross: R412,959
Percentage change: NA
Total local gross: R412,959

(LW = Last Week, NE = New Entry)

Last Updated: February 8, 2017

7 Comments

  1. I still need to watch Rogue One, ffs

    Reply

    • Lu

      January 19, 2017 at 07:13

      WHAAAAAAT!? You really need to make time for it. Small screen won’t do it justice.

      Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      January 19, 2017 at 09:09

      Me two

      Reply

  2. DragonSpirit009

    January 19, 2017 at 08:44

    I can’t believe there are people who would want to go watch the Monster Truck movie. It looks… not right!

    Reply

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