Shazam! Wow!
Yes, it’s true: The World’s Mightiest Mortal now fronts the world’s mightiest movie. Shazam!, DC’s latest superhero flick, cleaned up at the box office this weekend, earning about $53.4 million in North America. It’s now polishing its No. 1 trophy that, I’m sure, the box office gives out to all its winners. It earned nearly twice that overseas, by the way, pushing its overall tally to a Shazam-riffic $158.8 million. Holy Moly.
Pet Sematary—the second movie to be based on the book that even author Stephen King thoughts was too disturbing to publish—dug up about $25 million in creepy receipts and crawled into second place. It’s the second biggest opening for a King-based movie ever, just behind 2017’s It. Pretty impressive, considering about 45 movies have been made based on the horror writer’s stories, with another three scheduled for later this year. Just goes to show that if there’s anything in King’s sphere that is truly impossible to kill, it just might be his own success.
Dumbo, last week’s No. 1 movie, flitted to third with $18.2 million, bringing its overall domestic haul to $76.3 million. That’s hardly enough to fill Disney’s big top, given that the company spent an estimated $170 million to bring the flying elephant to life. Sure, the film still has some lift in those ears, but more and more it’s looking like Dumbo might be just a 2019 sideshow, right alongside the bearded lady.
Us skittered into fourth place with $13.8 million. It’s the year’s third-biggest film with $152.4 million, and it’ll likely edge into second place (passing How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World and its $156.7 million) by the time we reconvene next week.
Who’s No. 1 for the year? Why, Disney’s Captain Marvel, of course, which closed out the top five this weekend with another $12.7 million. Given that Shazam’s original name was also Captain Marvel (he only officially dropped it in 2012), this likely marks the first time in box-office history that two superheroes with the same historical name have finished in the top five. (Or maybe not, given that the now official Captain Marvel was originally named Ms. Marvel. Superheroes are confusing.)
Captain Marvel’s continuing success barred another newcomer, The Best of Enemies, from entering the top five. The feel-good, racially-charged, based-on-a-true-story movie earned just $4.5 million to land in sixth place. Finally this week, Unplanned, which tells the story of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson’s decision to leave that work and become a pro-life activist, came in at No. 8 with $3.2 million.
Recent Comments