Home Entertainment Local weekend box office – Leon Schuster can’t beat some wizards

Local weekend box office – Leon Schuster can’t beat some wizards

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A good number of years ago Gavin got to interview Leon Schuster, and while chatting to him he asked the South African filmmaking legend exactly what most of us have been wondering: Why did he keep making these incredibly dumb, low-brow, rather terrible comedies? It was simple, the veteran funnyman revealed: he kept making them because that’s what people kept turning up to see en masse.

There was no arguing that point as for a veeeeeery long time Schuster’s Mr Bones had the biggest grossing debut in SA box office history and his every release drew huge crowds. That type of instant smash-hit heyday is long behind Schuster though, as can be attested by the 67-year old’s latest effort, Frank and Fearless, which failed to dethrone last week’s box office champ Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

After its much-welcomed strong opening last week, the Fantastic Beasts sequel held strong in first place with a R2.8 million sophomore take. Frank and Fearless was quite a bit off the pace as it opened in 2nd place with R1.4 million, not exactly a huge sum. In fact, the film had a close fight with Gerard Butler-led submarine actioner Hunter Killer (which also has a local connection as it’s directed by Donavan “Spud” Marsh) which debuted in 3rd place with R1.1 million. Hunter Killer opened in 20 cinemas fewer than Frank and Fearless, so the former actually had a bigger per-theatre average as well.

There were two other new releases on the weekend in I Still See You and Shock & Awe, but both had very limited releases so they barely made an impact as they opened way down the charts. As most of the other entries just dropped a place or two – with the exception of Widows which fell four spots – there was only one highlight as Kevin Hart comedy Night School somehow improved slightly despite being in its 9th week of release already.

Let’s see what the rest of the South African box office chart looks like:

No.Movie Name Weekend gross Percentage change Local gross Last Week's Position
1Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald R2.8 million -42% R9.5 million 1st
2Frank and Fearless R1.4 million NE R1.4 million NE
3Hunter Killer R1.1 million NE R1.1 million NE
4Nobody's Fool R1 million -1% R6.9 million 4th
5The Nutcracker and the Four Realms R557 729 -26% R4.1 million 3rd
6Night School R498 892 +4% R19.6 million 6th
7A Star is Born R495 704 -21% R10.9 million 5th
8Widows R495 330 -22% R1.4 million 4th
9Venom R319 602 -24% R23.1 million 7th
10Smallfoot R304 813 -25% R14.7 million 8th

NE = New Entry

Last Updated: November 27, 2018

4 Comments

  1. R1.4 million was just wasted …

    Reply

  2. Magoo

    November 27, 2018 at 13:36

  3. Chris

    November 27, 2018 at 14:30

    Ralph Breaks the Internet starts this weekend! o/

    Reply

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