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Shazam WB.jpg

Box Office Report: Dead Pets Outdo Baby Elephants

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 7, 2019 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | April 7, 2019 |


Shazam WB.jpg

Much to the delight of Warner Bros., and basically exactly how everyone expected the weekend to unfold, DC’s Shazam! took the top spot with a $53.4m opening. Audiences loved this one, with an A Cinemascore bolstering already strong reviews, and internationally it’s already made back its $100m budget plus change. This effort was always going to be a weird one for DC: It’s a much smaller movie compared to, say, Justice League and wouldn’t be under as much pressure to make major bank at the box office, but it’s also a lesser known property that’s skewing much younger than the rest of the franchise. But it’s fun and kids love it and we need some joy, dammit.

Opening right behind it is Pet Sematary with $25m. That’s the second largest opening for a Stephen King adaptation, behind only the behemoth that was 2017’s It. Audiences and critics were much more tepid on this reboot but the budget was around $21m so hey, job well done.

The news was less positive for Dumbo. After a good but not great opening weekend, the film tumbled to number 3 in its second weekend and its gross fell a sharp 60% from last week. It’s grossed around $76m domestically from a gargantuan $170m budget, so this could be a major write-off for the studio, although it has passed $213m overall thanks to stronger international grosses. Still, when you make movies that pricey, the bar for success is way higher than $200m.

By contrast, Us jumped past $150m domestically in its third week and Captain Marvel is closing in on $375m in its fifth week.

Opening at number 6 was Best of Enemies, another ‘heart-warming’ story of how people who experience racism just need to ‘find common ground’ with racists. Audiences were less keen on this one than Green Book, as it opened at number 6 with only $4.5m. Does Sam Rockwell’s agent just scramble into a room like a starved hyena whenever they see a script floating around with a character who’s a racist jerk?

In indie news, the big release for film nerds was High Life, the American debut of the legendary Claire Denis. Combine that with A24, Robert Pattinson and a f*ck box (seriously, watch the movie to find out more there), and you get a $100k opening weekend from only four theatres. Meanwhile, Amazon finally gave a minor release to Mike Leigh’s Peterloo, which grossed $30,427 from three theatres.

New releases this coming week include Laika animation Missing Link, the comedy Little, that Harry Styles fanfic movie oh dear lord it’s real After, and the new iteration of Hellboy.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.

What films did you watch this weekend? Let us know in the comments.



Header Image Source: YouTube // Warner Bros.