Weekend Wrap-Up
By Tim Briody
April 21, 2019
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Taking the weekend title from Shazam! in impressive fashion is The Curse of La Llorona, a horror entry that’s part of The Conjuring franchise. Earning $26.5 million on just a $9 million budget, these films have become some of the most successful horror films in recent years, non-Blumhouse division. A third Annabelle film is coming in June and The Conjuring 3 is slated for 2020. A sequel to last year’s The Nun is also in development. A cheap horror film is the perfect type of movie to throw out on this weekend, though the argument can be made that that’s true on nearly any weekend. It earned terrible reviews, but horror’s about as bulletproof as you can get. Seemingly minimal marketing also appeared to have doomed it, but the fans of the franchise still found it. It’s going to vanish quickly from here, but nearly tripling your budget on opening weekend is always a good thing.
Shazam! slides to second with $17.3 million, down 29% from last weekend. It’s got $121.3 million after three weekends, which is a solid figure since we have to grade the box office of DC movies on a curve. It’ll be interesting to see what direct impact Endgame has on Shazam! next weekend, but it should still be headed to around $165 million as of right now.
Another new release from the faith based genre, which is also a good type of movie to put out over the holiday weekend, Breakthrough earns $11.1 million for the weekend and has $14.6 since its Wednesday release. The based on a true story book adaptation stars Chrissy Metz from This is Us, which may have added a small amount to its box office total. It’s a feel good story for those who want those sort of things, and was fairly inexpensive ($14 million reported budget) so Fox will be happy with this one by the time it’s done.
As I mentioned last week, I was looking forward to what Captain Marvel’s box office was this weekend, as people get themselves hyped for Endgame. It worked for Black Panther last year, even though that had been in theaters for over two months by that point. Well, on the holiday weekend, Captain Marvel earned $9.1 million, up 6% from last weekend. It’s the only film in the top ten to see an increase from last weekend, and no other film was even close. This puts it at $400 million, which is just an incredible feat. Even with Endgame potentially breaking the opening weekend record next weekend, I’m still looking to see if people pregame it with a Captain Marvel showing, which also happened with Black Panther.
And well, that’s all that’s really interesting on this weekend, so it’s time for the return of the lightning round!
Little drops an okay 45% from opening weekend to $8.4 million and $29.3 million after two weekends. This is fine. It had a reported budget of $20 million, so Universal will likely count it as a win.
Tim Burton’s Dumbo stumbles over the finish line to $100 million with $6.8 million (down 28%, getting the holiday weekend bump) and $101.2 million after four weekends. It's still going down as a flop for Disney, and Aladdin’s fortunes aren’t really improving as we get closer to that Memorial Day weekend release.
Pet Sematary adds $4.8 million in its third weekend (down 50%) and has $49.5 million. This one is a profitable venture for Paramount as we all wait for the It sequel in the fall.
Missing Link also gets a decent holiday hold with $4.3 million (down 26%), but the opening weekend doomed it as it’s still only got $12.9 million in two weekends. The Laika release just didn’t connect with the target audience for some reason, despite having successful films in the past.
Us gets closer to Get Out’s total with $4.2 million and $170.4 million in five weekends. Get Out earned $176 million and Us is about to wrap up with slightly above that total as we just hand a blank check to Jordan Peele and wait to see what he comes up with next.
One of the year’s bigger disasters, Hellboy wraps up the top ten this weekend by falling 68% from opening weekend to $3.8 million. The reboot nobody really asked for has $19.6 million in two weekends.
The top 12 films this weekend added up to $101.6 million, down from last year’s $111.7 million when A Quiet Place returned to the top with $20.9 million, while I Feel Pretty opened with $16 million and Super Troopers 2 earned a 4/20 powered $15.1 million, featuring one of the worst internal weekend multipliers of all time.
If I need to tell you what opens next weekend, you haven’t been paying attention.