Carl Roberts 
Shazam’s box office dominance suffers from the Curse of Llorona
This past weekend at the box office, the newly released horror film ‘The Curse Of La Llorona’ scared its way to take the top spot. While many of us were too busy munching our way through overly priced chocolate eggs, the film spooked up a $26.5million opening. Great news for Writer/ Producer/ Director James Wan’s return to the horror fold after dipping his toe in the DC waters (literally) with ‘Aquaman’ but the entire Easter box office weekend was the slowest and lowest grossing Easter movie going weekend for 14 years.
However, the R Rated horror film, also known in several territories as ‘The Curse Of The Weeping Woman’ only cost an estimated $9million to produce and adding the $30million the film took internationally, the film has made $58.5million in its first weekend. Critics though found the film to rely on an overly formulaic format, giving the supernatural child-snatching movie a 32% average on Rotten Tomatoes. But the film has made money on such a small budget so you can guess the studios and filmmakers won’t tamper too much with such a winning formula in their future dalliances into the genre.
After two weekends sitting atop the chart, DC’s ‘Shazam!’ drifted down the chart into second place. The Warner Bros. film managed to hook an additional $17.3million this past weekend, giving the $100million budgeted film a take of £121.3million in the U.S and $322.8million worldwide. Zachary Levi’s winning take as the character and those kinds of numbers almost certainly guarantee the film will get a sequel which, in my opinion, it completely deserves.
Opening in the third position was Director Roxann Dawson (Star Trek Voyager‘s feisty Klingon) PG-rated drama ‘Breakthrough’. The film, based on the novel ‘The Impossible’ by Joyce Smythe opened with $14.6million against a budget of $14million. The timely release of the film, a faith-based tale of a young teen surviving and recovering from drowning is the first Fox film to be released by Disney since they acquired the studio. Critics were slightly divided on the film and its subject matter, gaining the film a 64% average on Rotten Tomatoes. But as the film still has to open internationally, it would be hard to see the film not making a significant profit when its cinematic run is over.
As the true superhero she is (And with the fact that her second appearance of the summer is less than a week away), Marvel’s ‘Captain Marvel‘ rose like a phoenix two places and landed in the fourth position. The Brie Larson starring comic book movie took in another $9.1million on her seventh weekend of release. The film has now taken over $400million domestically in the States and has reached $1.08billion worldwide against its budget of $170million.
In fifth place came the Regina Hall starring comedy ‘Little’ with another $8.4million added to its coffers. The PG-13 rated film has now taken £29.3million against its budget of £20million. But again, it still has to open in a few international markets yet so its numbers will improve by the end of its worldwide run.
Walt Disney’s Live action remake of ‘Dumbo‘ finally managed to fly past the $100million mark in the sixth position. Gaining a further $6.8million to boost its worldwide take to $307million, the Tim Burton-directed film is considered to be a disappointment for the studio. People like myself called this long ago. It has made its money on a reported £170million budget but it most certainly hasn’t grabbed the hearts of moviegoers across the world. It’s almost certainly down to the sheer love and adoration the original cartoon movie has across the globe. Added to that fact is the film is completely unnecessary and you can understand why the film hasn’t flown as high as Disney hoped it would.
Creeping its way down the chart and deciding to pause at number seven, the ‘Pet Sematary‘ remake raised it’s dead hands and grabbed another $4.8million. The film now has scared its way to a domestic total of $49,5million and a worldwide total of $95.6million against its $21million budget.
The animated family comedy film ‘Missing Link‘ managed to hold on in the chart again this week, taking $4.3million and bringing its total to £12.9million after ten days on release.
In the ninth position rests Writer/Director Jordan Peeles’ ‘US’. The $20million budgeted horror film now has a total of $170.4million domestically and $255million around the world, once again proving that Peele knows what he’s doing and what will scare his audience.
In the tenth position on our chart lies the abysmal R-Rated reboot of ‘Hellboy‘. Gaining a further $3.8million and bringing its total to $19.6million against a $50million budget, the film is the first big flop of the year. Star David Harbour (Stranger Things) tries really hard in the film and must be commended for his efforts. His take on the devilish comic book character is a delight for all fans but sadly and understandably can’t match actor Ron Perlman’s version. Perlman IS Hellboy from start to finish. Harbour IS a more adult version of the character but can’t muster the same charm. However, Harbour shines in his role. It’s not his fault the film is so bad as it is. Reported behind the scenes problems litter the film from its opening frames. And as an Englishman, the film shames both myself and my country with appalling acting, cartoonish characterisations of English people and the film is nothing short of a bad episode of the BBC’S long-running soap opera ‘Eastenders‘ albeit with bad language and bloody violence. The films 13% average on Rotten Tomatoes is, in my opinion, way too high. It hovers around the 0% mark for me.
Leaving the chart this week were romantic film ‘After‘ just one week after debuting and ‘The Best Of Enemies‘. Meanwhile, Disney’s documentary film ‘Penguins‘ gained itself $2.3million domestically and $3.2million worldwide. The film, though overlooked by people in favour of the more bigger budgeted films this weekend has delighted audiences and enchanted the critics, gaining the film a 90% average on Rotten Tomatoes. Opening in limited release, the quirky mystery film ‘Under The Silver Lake‘ made an average of $20,000 per screen. The Andrew Garfield/ Riley Keough film has gained a 53% average on Rotten Tomatoes. If you watch the trailer for the film, you may understand why the film is on limited release. To my mind, the film looks very much like a modern-day ‘Donnie Darko‘. That film didn’t really ignite the box office either but found cult success over time, something I’m sure ‘Silver Lake‘ will achieve.
Next weekend, well, there’s only one way to put this. The biggest film expected this year finally opens. At last, we can put the fan theories to bed. At last, we can see how it all plays out. We can all begin to use the internet again (Damn you, spoiler happy people). Avengers: Endgame makes its bow around the world. Box offices and ticket booking sites have hit a total meltdown. EVERYBODY wants that ticket to be first to see the film and can proclaim they know how it all ends. I myself, have my ticket already booked to see the film at its midnight opening here in the U.K and am seriously looking forward to seeing the film. That being said, however, we over here at The Future Of The Force have a very strict ‘NO SPOILERS’ policy. We will NOT be posting any spoilers for the film. We may review the movie in a very non-spoilerific way as soon as we have seen it but we will give no clues or details out about the film.
It has been reported that the film doesn’t contain any ‘Stingers’ during the end credits, instead going for an estimated eight-minute recap over the events of the past ten years. If this does happen to be true, I think the film will have done the best thing it could do. This is the culmination of 22 films and ten years work and it feels only fitting that our original heroes have the spotlight shone on them one final time.
So, what are you, our beloved readers and followers predictions for the films opening weekend gross? $200million? $300million? $500million? I’m going to put my guess in at around $375million opening weekend. I could and probably will be wrong but take into account the films three-hour running time which cuts down it’s per day showings and it may impact the take slightly. But now, the guessing is over to you!
Check back with The Future Of The Force again next week to discover if your prediction is way out, very close or spot on. So until next time…
“Avengers! Assemble!”
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Source: JoBlo.com
Future of the Force News Editor,Liverpool F.C fan,Halloween Movie Fan, Friday The 13th movies fan, Star Wars Fan, Star Trek Fan.
