Local weekend box office – Sonic the Hedgehog finally dethrones Bad Boys

It’s kind of fitting that it took a popular character from the 1990s to finally dethrone a couple of popular characters from the 1990s as Sonic the Hedgehog debuted in the top spot held by Bad Boys for Life for four straight weeks. Sonic posted a R3.2 million debut this weekend past which is not exactly anything major – especially considering the video game adaptation’s runaway success in the rest of the world – but it was enough to get the job done. Bad Boys was still hanging in there with R2.4 million though as it dropped down to second place. It’s local total currently sits at R43.4 million. Birds of Prey rounded out the top three as its weekly earnings dropped below the million rand mark for the first time.

With current total earnings chart champion Jumanji: The Next Level (R69 million) sitting in fourth, Oscar-nominated newcomer Little Women had to settle for a fifth-place opening. Writer/director Gret Gerwig’s adaptation has been a stealthy box office success worldwide, and it proved its worth locally as well. Although it earned less than R700k locally, it did it from just 38 cinemas, giving it the third-highest per-theatre-average on the charts. Unfortunately for the other newcomers, they couldn’t mimic that success. Just Mercy opened in cinema more than Little Women but could only land in ninth place as it barely cracked R300k. At least it was in the top 10 though, which is more than could be said for horror sequel Brahms: The Boy II which ended up in twelfth place thanks to a very limited opening.

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

NE = New Entry

Last Updated: February 25, 2020