Box Office: 'Shazam' Superhero Fatigues To Boffo $21 Million Friday - Forbes

Zachary Levi, Grace Fulton, Jovan Armand, Jack Dylan Grazer, Ian Chen, Faithe Herman in 'Shazam'

Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. and DC Films’ Shazam opened with a terrific $20.5 million Friday, including $5.9 million in Thursday previews but not including $3.3 million in national sneak previews from two weeks ago. That gives the film a $23.825 million running domestic cume and a real shot at ending up over $55 million by tomorrow night. Couple that with an A from Cinemascore and we have another DC Films hit. Yes, this will be a lower debut than even Aquaman’s $72 million (counting its own sneak previews) Fri-Sun launch last December, but Shazam is a $90 million New Line joint, so the variables are a little different. At its cost, even a Conjuring-like performance (around $110 million domestic and around $350 million worldwide) would be a solid win.

Moreover, a run like last April’s Rampage ($100 million domestic and $428 million worldwide on a $120 million budget) would be (at worst) a triple. More importantly, the film has earned mostly positive reviews (a 91% fresh and 7.28/10 average critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and strong word-of-mouth. Coupled with Wonder Woman and Aquaman, and it’s hard not to argue that DC Films has now earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to solo superhero flicks. That this film is going to earn around $55 million over the weekend despite being a B-level property and lacking outright movie stars is a sign both to the overall strength of the superhero genre and the general popularity of DC Films as a now somewhat trusted brand.

It also shows that Walter Hamada’s DC Films franchise can turn B-level superheroes into A-level movie stars while playing in different franchise sandboxes. Man of Steel was a sci-fi first contact drama, Wonder Woman was a World War I/Greek mythology tale, Shazam was a kid-friendly horror fantast and Aquaman was uh… “all of the above and more.” Like Marvel initially did with their Phase One movies, DC is taking less-than-top-tier properties and turning them into hugely popular names, while also crafting uniquely compelling cinematic variations on those heroes. If we ever get another team-up movie, the hook will not just be “Hey, it’s the Justice League!” but rather “Hey, Zackary Levi’s Shazam is going to meet Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman and Jason Momoa’s Aquaman!”

Yes, I am being presumptive in that the film will play well overseas (we’re probably looking at a $100 million-plus foreign bow) and that it’ll leg out at least until April 25 at around 6:00 pm. But the David F. Sandberg-directed horror-tinged foster kid melodrama (that’s also a superhero movie) is a pretty great film. It plays like a mix of Meet the Robinsons, Antwone Fisher, the first Spider-Man and the best part of Green Lantern (a truly horrifying villain with plenty of character development and serious daddy issues) all blended into a kid-friendly throwback that never feels less than unique unto itself and never sells out its drama for spectacle. Shazam, being as good as it is, shows that Wonder Woman and Aquaman were not flukes.

The optimist in me says that we could see legs this weekend like Kong: Skull Island, which pulled a 3x multiplier after a $20 million opening day. That would get Shazam to around $63 million for the weekend, counting the sneak previews. Even an over/under $55 million launch would be a win, specifically because the movie is quite good and I’d expect halfway decent legs. Whether it legs out here and abroad and ends up closer to Ready Player One than The Conjuring 2, it proves that DC Films can do its thing without relying on Batman and Superman. If and when we get more Superman and Batman films, it won’t be because the folks at DC Films had to, but because they chose to.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2019/04/06/box-office-shazam-dc-films-zachary-levi-gal-gadot-jason-momoa-aquaman-wonder-woman-batman/

2019-04-06 14:15:00Z
52780262098774