Just as I expected, Shazam: Fury of the Gods has fizzled at the box office as it is now estimated to open lower at $30 million.
Initially, the estimates were offering a $35 million opener to as high as $40 million but following the Friday box office and presales for the weekend, the Shazam: Fury of the Gods box office is likely to be around $30 million.
Regardless of whatever number the box office comes in at, it’s not good as the first movie opened at $53.5 million, so that’s a big drop of 44% from the 2019 release.
Fury of the God‘s first Friday which includes Thursday previews is also off 42% from the first movie’s $20.3 million Friday and Thursday previews.
What is also off is the Rotten Tomatoes Score as critics have destroyed the sequel with a 54% score while the first movie has a 90%, so that is a huge difference.
Curiously, the Audience Score is actually higher for Fury of the Gods at 85%, while the first movie has an 82%.
Over at IMDb, the sequel has a 6.7 while the first movie comes in at a 7.0, so not too much of a dip.
The CinemaScore is also lower for Fury of the Gods with a B+ while the first Shazam! has an A.
So what happened?
Well, the first movie only made $366 million so it’s not like tons of people went to see it and it’s not like Shazam has been attached to any of the shared DC universe stuff with two cameos that don’t count in addition to James Gunn rebooting with his new DCU.
Who asked for a sequel?
Deadline offers they decided to go with the sequel because the first one made about $70 million in profit, yet when Dwayne Johnson said Black Adam made $50 million in profit everybody laughed, but not for Shazam? Okay.
I’ve also noticed in THR’s report about the dismal box office they keep bringing up the pandemic, so movies that bomb it’s the pandemic, but movies that make billions it’s not the pandemic? Yeah, sure.
And who is the audience for Shazam? Aside from the Chinese trailer, the trailers I’ve seen for Fury of the Gods are horrendous, especially the first trailer released. Are teenagers going to see this? I don’t think so. Are Hardcore DCEU fans? Nope. Marvel fans? Nada.
Again, this is a flick that nobody really asked for, was greenlit by the new DCU co-head producer Peter Safran and will probably make less money than the first. If lightning didn’t strike once, it isn’t striking twice.
Update: Seems the director, David F. Sandberg, also expected a low box office as Sandberg responded to a fan on Reddit.
“No worries. It’s not like this comes as a surprise. I saw where this was heading a long time ago. I’ll be alright though. I got paid all my money upfront,” Sandberg said with a smiley face emoji.
