Despite a slew of new releases targeting all different segments of the moviegoing audience this weekend, Warner Bros.’ DC adaptation Shazam! captured the No. 1 spot for a second weekend in a row with an estimated $25.1 M, bringing the total for the superhero comedy close to $100 million. Elsewhere, Little shot ahead of Hellboy to claim the runner-up spot, while Laika’s Missing Link stumbled and the YA adaptation After overperformed.
Continuing to ride high following its solid $53.5 million debut last weekend, Shazam! dropped around 53% in its sophomore frame for a total of $94.9 million. That’s a better second-weekend performance than the majority of DCEU releases, which tend to drop north of 60% in their respective second weekends (Aquaman and Wonder Woman excluded). Look for the Warner Bros. release to cross $100 million by next weekend.
Making a surprise showing in second place was Little, the Regina Hall-Issa Rae fantasy comedy that has become just the latest effective counter-programming effort from phenomenally-successful producer Will Packer. The Universal release grossed an estimated $15.5 million in its debut, lifting it higher than industry forecasts heading into the weekend and allowing it to usurp the expected No. 2 finisher Hellboy. Reviews were only middling for the wish-fulfillment comedy (it has a 49% on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences seem to have liked it much better, awarding it a “B+” Cinemascore.
Little also benefitted from being the sole outright comedy in wide release at the moment, with winter releases like Isn’t It Romantic, What Men Want and A Madea Family Funeral all nearing the end of their theatrical runs. Notably, the audience for Little was 65% female and 43% African-American.
Coming in third with a disappointing estimate of $12 million was Hellboy, the reboot of the comic-book franchise that was kicked off by Guillermo del Toro’s two previous installments. There were a number of notable factors working against the Lionsgate release this weekend. For starters, it received one of the worst Rotten Tomatoes averages (15%) of any wide-release title this year, which was a far cry from the generally well-received Del Toro films. Secondly, the absence of Del Toro in the director’s chair (The Descent director Neil Marshall stepped in this time around) may have turned off many fans of the previous Hellboy installments, which were generally well-liked.
Another likely factor in Hellboy‘s less-than-desirable debut was the fact that it arrived sandwiched between two other high-profile superhero releases: namely, Shazam! and Avengers: Endgame, which has already been breaking records in advance of its April 26 release. Coupled with its more restrictive R-rating and poor reviews, the already-saturated market for superhero fare may well have deterred non-Hellboy-diehards from turning out this weekend.
Dropping to fourth following a good $24.5 million debut last weekend was Pet Sematary, which dipped 59% to an estimated $10 million in its sophomore frame. The new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic novel/remake of the 1989 film now has $41.1 million after ten days of release. While far from the kind of blockbuster numbers boasted by 2017’s It, that’s nonetheless a healthy total for the Paramount horror film.
Fifth place went to Dumbo, which brought in an estimated $9.2 million in its third weekend of release. Despite its well-known title character and blockbuster budget (a reported $170 million), the film has been performing less like fellow live-action Disney remakes Beauty & the Beast and Cinderella and more like last year’s Christopher Robin, which finished its domestic run just shy of $100 million off a much more modest $75 million reported budget. Though its international grosses have been relatively more robust (more on that below), Dumbo has nonetheless proved to be something of a disappointment for a home studio that has banked part of its world-domination strategy on these live-action remakes of classic animated titles.
Sixth place went to Captain Marvel, which continued to soar with an estimated $8.6 million in its sixth weekend of release. With $386.5 million in the bank so far, the superhero release will soon topple the $389.8 million total of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 to become the seventh highest-grossing title in the MCU domestically.
Holdover Us was down 49% to an estimated $6.9 million in seventh place, bringing the total for the Jordan Peele horror film to $163.5 million after four weeks. The Universal title has been fading considerably faster than Peele’s previous release Get Out, which brought in $13.4 million on its respective fourth weekend despite opening considerably lower ($33.3 million).
Making a better-than-expected showing in eighth was the YA adaptation After, which managed $6.2 million from 2,138 screens in its opening frame. The Aviron release seems to have appealed to a healthy segment of fans who originally gobbled up author Anna Todd’s book series, which began as One Direction fan fiction online before being repackaged by Simon & Schuster (sans the One Direction element). Reviews for the film weren’t good (its Rotten Tomatoes average stands at a fairly dismal 13%), though it fared better with audiences, who awarded it a “B” Cinemascore on opening day.
The weekend’s final new wide release Missing Link faltered in ninth place with an estimated $5.8 million despite debuting on over 3,400 screens, which is the widest debut for any Laika release to date. The disappointing opening came despite the film scoring an impressive 89% “Certified Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. While it’s possible the United Artists release will hold up well in subsequent weekends (Laika movies tend to have reasonably strong legs), this is by far the lowest wide opening of any of the animation studio’s movies to date, with the previous low being 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings ($12.6 million). As is usually the case with stop-motion animated films, the opening represented but a fraction of what the average computer-animated movie tends to bring in on opening weekend, again demonstrating the more limited appeal of stop motion in the 21st century.
Finally in tenth, last weekend’s newcomer The Best of Enemies brought in an estimated $2 million, bringing the total for the Taraji P. Henson drama to $8.1 million after ten days.
Overseas Update:
Shazam! brought in an estimated $35.9 million overseas, lifting its international total to $163.9 million and its global cume to $258.8 million. In its top international market of China, the film has grossed an estimated $40.4 million to date.
Dumbo grossed an estimated $22 million overseas this weekend, bringing its international cume to $177 million and its global total to $266.9 million. Country totals include $23 million in the U.K., $20.9 million in China and $17.6 million in Mexico.
The post Studio Weekend Estimates: <em>Shazam!</em> Holds No. 1 Spot w/ $25.1M; <em>Little</em> ($15.5M) Beats Out <em>Hellboy</em> ($12M) for Second Place appeared first on Boxoffice.
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