SA’s box office: Blade Runner 2049, and some movie facts

You know that relatable feeling where you have to write about something because it’s a series and a thing you do every week but this week there’s legitimately nothing to say and you have no idea how you’re going to hit that word count so your editor will feel okay publishing your story?

Same.

This week at South Africa’s box office nothing happened. Sure, Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle jumped one up to two as Emoji Movie dropped to three, and, sure, The Snowman opened in fourth, and maybe Victoria & Abdul hopped one up to ninth, but other than that? Nothing remotely exciting.

So instead here are some “fun” facts about the box office.

• Titanic — the second highest-grossing film of all time — had a relatively poor opening weekend, and its highest grossing day was the 58th day of release, which just so happened to be Valentine’s Day.
• High School Musical 3: Senior Year made US$252-million worldwide in 2008, despite its predecessors both being made for TV. The raw power of love, friendship and Zac Efron’s face.
• Remy, the rat from Ratatouille, cried for a week when he heard the film didn’t make the top 10 of its year like all the other Pixar films.
• The lowest grossing film ever is 2006’s Zyzzyx Road starring Katherine Heigl. Apparently some Screen Actors Guild policy allows producers to pay actors less if they release films in theatres — so they released it in just one, and when six people showed up (one of whom was the film’s makeup artist), they made a grand total of USD$30. Its budget was US$2-million.

Was that even exciting? I don’t know. The world is upside down, nothing makes sense, and we’re all floating in space on a giant rock that at any moment could decide to kill us all.

Here are ten most-watched movies in SA this past weekend:

1. Blade Runner 2049 (Incl. 3D, IMAX & 4DX)
2. Kingsman 2: The Golden Circle (Incl. 3D, 4DX, & IMAX)
3. The Emoji Movie (Incl. 3D)
4. The Snowman
5. It (Incl. IMAX & 4DX)
6. The Lego Ninjago Movie (Incl. IMAX & 3D)
7. My Little Pony
8. Unlocked
9. Victoria & Abdul
10. Vaselinetjie

The above list was provided by Ster Kinekor Entertainment.