While we were all too caught up with Game of Thrones, movies at the Box Office were also making rounds over the weekend. Shazam! was obviously expected to win its second consecutive weekend, and it did exactly that. But the numbers that have come in this weekend tell us that every movie except Captain Marvel and probably ‘Little’ would probably be disappointed.
Shazam! may have won the weekend over a mediocre-but-stiff competition, but it has faced a significant drop in its numbers. The movie began with a $53 Million opening weekend, and given the fact that it was a raving success critically, we were expecting the film to hold strong in the second week as more people would move in with the good word of mouth. But that didn’t happen as Shazam! suffered a 53% drop bringing in only $25 Million within its second weekend.
In the way that it is moving forward, Shazam! may not even be able to go past the $500 Million mark. Sure the film only had a budget of just $100 Million, and by now it has made $221 Million, meaning that Shazam! has covered its entire production and marketing cost and is generating revenue.
But considering this major drop within the second weekend itself, Shazam! would clearly be prone to another big drop in the third weekend. These were the only 3 weeks where Shazam! could have made some serious cash because its earnings will be massively curbed by Avengers: Endgame in the fourth weekend.
While Shazam! soared through with good enough numbers, almost all other films failed. Here’s the list of the top 7 movies at the domestic Box Office this weekend:
Shazam! – $25 Million
Little – $15 Million
Hellboy (2019) – $12.5 Million
Pet Semetary – $10 Million
Dumbo – $9 Million
Captain Marvel – $8.6 Million
Us – $6.9 Million
Out of all these films, Little had a great weekend, but Captain Marvel still had the best weekend, considering the fact that it almost made $9 Million being in its 6th weekend. Only in the second weekend did Captain Marvel suffer a 53% drop in its earnings, and rest all other weekends have been amazing for the female-led Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, as it maintained a less than 50% drop record since the second one.
The major disappointment for this week has been none other than Hellboy! This reboot just lacked any sorts of charm as it tried to be many things, but ended up being none of it. The critical review is self-explanatory of the fact that this film sucks, and that is why it opened up with just $12 Million.
With Avengers: Endgame coming in and the Box Office maintaining a stiff competition, it is very doubtful for Hellboy to be able to make even its production budget of $50 Million back. Lionsgate studios are clearly going to be in a major loss with this film. What’s funny is that the creatives actually set up a sequel for the film. We can safely say that the Hellboy franchise has been killed and may never be resurrected.
Still, we’d like to conclude by saying that Shazam! is getting much less than it actually deserves. It actually presents a better story than Captain Marvel, so the film should at least be making at least half of that. But it is what it is.
Here’s the official Synopsis of Shazam!:
“We all have a superhero inside us, it just takes a bit of magic to bring it out. In Billy Batson’s (Angel) case, by shouting out one word—SHAZAM!—this streetwise 14-year-old foster kid can turn into the adult Super Hero Shazam (Levi), courtesy of an ancient wizard. Still a kid at heart—inside a ripped, godlike body—Shazam revels in this adult version of himself by doing what any teen would do with superpowers: have fun with them! Can he fly? Does he have X-ray vision? Can he shoot lightning out of his hands? Can he skip his social studies test? Shazam sets out to test the limits of his abilities with the joyful recklessness of a child. But he’ll need to master these powers quickly in order to fight the deadly forces of evil controlled by Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Strong).”
