“Shazam! Fury of the Gods felt the fury of the market on its opening weekend as the New Line Cinema and Warner Bros.
The “Shazam!” The sequel fell short of modest expectations ($35 million) and the first film in the series ($53.5 million as of April 2019), which sits at the lower end of modern DC Comics movie starts, between Birds of Prey” ( $33 million as of Feb. 2020) and The Suicide Squad ($26.2 million as of August 2021), both of which are R-rated.
Directed by David F. Sandberg, Shazam! Fury of the Gods” brought back Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody and Djimon Hounsou and added Helen Mirren, Rachel Zegler and Lucy Liu. Critics, many of whom found the first film charming, were largely blown away by this outing It has a 53% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Audiences were slightly more positive about the sequel, giving it a B-plus CinemaScore overall. Younger viewers rated the film more favourably.
“This movie was a lot lighter than we thought it would be,” said Jeff Goldstein, director of domestic sales at Warner Bros. We hope that we can achieve a nice multiple.”
“Shazam! Fury of the Gods reportedly cost $125 million to produce, not including marketing and advertising costs. Internationally, it grossed US$35 million in 77 overseas markets, including China, bringing total revenue to US$65.5 million came.
The DC Store at Warner Bros. has been undergoing a major recalibration for months now, with new bosses in James Gunn and Peter Safran paving the way for the DC Universe to officially begin a new ‘Superman’ in 2025. “Shazam!” was one of the remnants of the old Regime, which included The Flash in June and a new Aquaman in December.
“Part of our company’s overall overhaul of DC with Peter Safran and James Gunn is resetting it for the future,” Goldstein said. “For us, it’s all about the future.”
For Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, there is one bright spot that Warner Bros. and DC “have another No. 1 under their belt”.
“They’re trying to adapt and align the brand,” Dergarabedian said. “You don’t change the trajectory of a brand as big as DC without wasting time. It’s still a work in progress and this is one step in that journey.”
Second place went to “Scream VI” on its second weekend in theaters. Distributed by Paramount, the horror picture dropped 61% from its debut and added $17.5 million, bringing its domestic total to $76 million.
In its third weekend, Creed III raised another $15.4 million to finish in third place. Directed by and starring Michael B. Jordan, the film grossed $127.7 million in North America. The films ’65’ and ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ rounded out the top five with $5.8 million and $4.1 million respectively.
Following Sunday’s Oscars draw, A24 added more than 1,000 screens for an encore of Everything Everywhere All at Once, which raised another $1.2 million. The Whale, for which Brendan Fraser won Best Actor, played on 509 screens and earned $145,230.
“What the public likes right now is a variety of content,” Dergarabedian said. “Overall, it’s shaping up to be a strong month with ‘Creed III’ and ‘Scream VI’ getting the best franchise debuts. Maybe we’ll see the same with ‘John Wick 4’.”
Source: LA Times