The willingness of Twilight fans (known as "Twihards") to go sleepless ahead of the premiere of Breaking Dawn on Wednesday has propelled the movie to blockbuster status.
The fourth movie in the series, adapted from US author Stephenie Meyer's popular vampire-themed fantasy romances, it scored the second-biggest box office for a South African opening weekend - beaten only by Twilight: Eclipse.
It has grossed more than R11-million since its midnight premiere.
Figures announced yesterday show that Oscar-winning director Bill Condon's movie was watched by more than 305000 South African fans in only five days.
The movie, which stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, also achieved the highest Friday and Saturday box office revenue for a South African release.
Penguin Books said last week that Breaking Dawn had sold more than 150000 copies in South Africa and the entire series had sold 600000 copies in this country.
By the end of last year, about 116million copies of the series had been sold worldwide.
Despite the movie scoring an underwhelming 47% rating on Metacritic, which aggregates most of the reviews, including The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Time magazine and Entertainment Weekly, the movie is poised for runaway success.
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