Pilanesberg Breaks Into Hollywood

With its good climate, beautiful backdrops and comparatively low location costs, South Africa has become an increasingly popular destination for big Hollywood productions.

The last five years or so have seen the likes of Orlando Bloom, Matt Damon, Ryan Reynolds Thomas Hardy and Denzel Washington spending time on set in Cape Town and elsewhere and generally enjoying all that South Africa has to offer.

Then last year Hollywood came to none other than our very own Pilanesberg National Park for the Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore collaboration, Blended, which was released in May. Aside from the shots in Pilanesberg, the film is predominantly shot in nearby Sun City and also features Kruger National Park.

While reviews have been mixed and the film has been criticized within South Africa for using too many tired African stereotypes, it’s still great to see the beautiful Pilanesberg on the big screen, and for anyone that knows the place it’s not hard to see why it was chosen.

Meanwhile, cricket star Dale Steyn and local group Hot Water also make their Hollywood debuts, with Dale making a brief cameo as himself and Hot Water featured on the official soundtrack.

Let’s hope that more movie productions notice what a great place Pilanesberg is and we might well be seeing a lot more of it on screen in the future.