It's Gone From Bad To Worse For Shazam! Fury Of The Gods At The Box Office
It's not exactly been a banner year for superhero movies thus far in 2023. "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" kicked off Phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with something of a whimper. What's more, it looks to go down as the lowest-grossing entry in the "Ant-Man" franchise to date, despite being billed as a major "Avengers"-level event. Now, DC finds itself in an unenviable position as well thanks to "Shazam! Fury of the Gods," which has bombed badly in its first two weekends. The difference in this case, however, is that we may be looking at one of the biggest flops of the year, superhero movie or otherwise.
"Fury of the Gods" fell off a cliff in its second frame this past weekend, as "John Wick: Chapter 4" took the lion's share of the ticket sales, grossing $73.5 million. The "Shazam!" sequel dropped 67.8%, bringing in a mere $9.7 million and falling to number three on the box office charts. "Creed III" actually managed to climb back up to number two in its fourth weekend, which goes to show just how hard the DC superhero flick is failing — and falling fast, we might add.
Let us not forget that the film debuted atop the charts last weekend, but did so with a very disappointing $30.1 million, which didn't come anywhere near the opening weekend of the original "Shazam!" ($53.5 million). To make a bad situation worse, the original was produced for between $90 and $100 million, whereas the sequel cost $125 million before marketing. So it's earning a lot less money with a bigger budget. It doesn't take expert analysis to understand that's bad for business. But just how bad is it?
The larger implications for DC
The only movies in what was formerly known as the DC Extended Universe to have a larger second weekend drop than the "Shazam!" sequel were "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" and "The Suicide Squad." In both cases, though, there were better explanations. Zack Snyder's divisive "BvS" was coming off of a $166 million opening weekend. So its second weekend take of $51.3 million, a 69.1% drop, was not great but certainly not detrimental. Meanwhile, "The Suicide Squad" opened while the pandemic was much more of an issue and was also released on HBO Max the same day it hit theaters. So its 71.5% second weekend drop can be chalked up to bad circumstances.
At a time when movies like "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" are literally making billions at the box office, moviegoers have no hesitation anymore. It's all about the product and, at this point, we're starting to see that an average superhero movie isn't going to cut it anymore. Case in point: "Fury of the Gods" was met with a pretty mixed response from critics, whereas the original is one of the best-reviewed DC movies ever. Even so, that film topped out at $363.5 million worldwide, a modest number by superhero movie standards. Four years and lots of comic book movies later, audiences are changing their tune.
At this point, the "Shazam!" sequel will be very lucky to cross $200 million worldwide, with only "The Suicide Squad" ($167 million) and "Wonder Woman 1984" ($166 million) earning less for DC — and both those titles were decimated by the pandemic. The main takeaway for now is that Warner Bros. is going to lose a lot of money with this one, and that all but ensures Zachary Levi's superhero won't be joining the new DC Universe that James Gunn and Peter Safran are putting together. It's the end of the line for Billy Batson.