“Shazam!” Electrifies the Box Office

By Kip Mooney • On • In Weekend Box Office Report Weekend Box Office Report Comments Off on “Shazam!” Electrifies the Box Office

BOX OFFICE REPORT

April 5-7, 2019

(estimates from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

TOP 5

Shazam!  $53.4 million
Pet Sematary  $25.0 million
Dumbo $18.2 million
Us $13.8 million
Captain Marvel  $12.6 million

Shazam! zapped the competition, taking in an estimated $53.4 million. While that was more than double the next movie, it didn't quite jump up to the superhero big leagues. Compared to its DC Extended Universe roster, that's on par with most of the previous films' second weekends. Still, with no real competition until Avengers: Endgame, it should make a pretty decent run.

Pet Sematary had a strong opening itself. As part of this Stephen King adaptation renaissance, it got mixed reviews, but scared up the second-biggest horror opening of the year. As usual, it should have a pretty sizable drop next week, but it's already made more than its $22 million budget, so it's a big success for Paramount.

Dumbo dropped a whopping 60 percent. That's the worst second weekend of any of the live-action Disney remakes, again suggesting there could be trouble ahead for this extremely lazy proposition. Us slipped to third, and by this time next week it should have surpassed Get Out's total gross (though I wouldn't hold my breath for any Oscar nominations). Captain Marvel dropped to fifth place, and still has a couple weeks to go before crossing $400 million.

Outside the top 5:

  • This Weekend's Indie Champ: High Life, Claire Denis' outer space psychosexual thriller. The film averaged just over $25,000 on each of its four screens.
  • The Best of Enemies couldn't find any of that sweet "racism-is-solved-just-by-being-nice" money that Green Book, Hidden Figures and The Help found. The true story of integration in Durham, NC, boasted an Oscar winner (Sam Rockwell) and nominee (Taraji P. Henson), but only managed a sixth-place debut with a measly $4.5 million.
  • The Beach Bum is flaming out. After an underwhelming debut, it dropped a massive 70 percent. It's only grossed $3 million so far, an all-out disaster for distributor Neon, director Harmony Korine and star Matthew McConaughey.

Next week:

Four new releases will all be jockeying for second place. I think teen drama After won't even sniff $10 million and LAIKA's new stop-motion effort Missing Link won't be a Pixar-level threat. And as much as I like David Harbour, I think Hellboy is going to be the first comic book movie to outright flop since 2015's Fantastic Four. So that leaves Little, featuring an excellent cast and funny trailers. It'll be the only one of this quartet to make more than $20 million.

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About Kip Mooney

Kip Mooney
Like many film critics born during and after the 1980s, my hero is Roger Ebert. The man was already the best critic in the nation when he won the Pulitzer in 1975, but his indomitable spirit during and after his recent battle with cancer keeps me coming back to read not only his reviews but his insightful commentary on the everyday. But enough about a guy you know a lot about. I knew I was going to be a film critic—some would say a snob—in middle school, when I had to voraciously defend my position that The Royal Tenenbaums was only a million times better than Adam Sandler’s remake of Mr. Deeds. From then on, I would seek out Wes Anderson’s films and avoid Sandler’s like the plague. Still, I like to think of myself as a populist, and I’ll be just as likely to see the next superhero movie as the next Sundance sensation. The thing I most deplore in a movie is laziness. I’d much rather see movies with big ambitions try and fail than movies with no ambitions succeed at simply existing. I’m also a big advocate of fun-bad movies like The Room and most of Nicolas Cage’s work. In the past, I’ve written for The Dallas Morning News and the North Texas Daily, which I edited for a semester. I also contributed to Dallas-based Pegasus News, which in the circle of life, is now part of The Dallas Morning News, where I got my big break in 2007. Eventually, I’d love to write and talk about film full-time, but until that’s a viable career option, I work as an auditor for Wells Fargo. I hope to one day meet my hero, go to the Toronto International Film Festival, and compete on Jeopardy. Until then, I’m excited to share my love of film with you.