Weekend projections: Shazam limps to $30.5 million on opening weekend

March 19, 2023

Shazam! Fury of the Gods

Shazam! Fury of the Gods will earn around $30.5 million this weekend, according to Warner Bros.’ Sunday-morning projection. That’s well short of the $53.5 million picked up by Shazam! on its opening weekend in April, 2019. Even accounting for the effects of the pandemic and a slightly smaller theater count, that’s effectively about 25% down from its predecessor, and marks a disappointing decline from the $67 million earned by Black Adam on its debut in October.

Here’s how the domestic numbers look as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



There’s really no good way to spin the result for Fury of the Gods. The studio points to a strong 87% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is, to be fair, a good number. This looks like a case of a film doing much better with audiences that it did with critics, and that is borne out a little by the fact that it was on track to earn around $28 million this weekend based solely on its preview numbers. Eaking out an extra $2.5 million isn’t a lot, but it does suggest decent word of mouth among its core audience. It seems unlikely that will translate into a long run in theaters though.

Moving On also had a disappointing opening. We don’t have an official number yet, but it will come in under $1 million.

Among returning movies, 65 and Champions are both doing better than expected on their second weekends. Champions probably isn’t doing enough to hold on to theaters next weekend, but 65 could extend its run a bit.

Also outperforming this weekend is Avatar: The Way of Water, which will earn nearly $2 million in its 14th weekend in theaters. It has $678 million in total domestically and $1.625 billion internationally, and becomes the third movie in history to reach the $2.3-billion global milestone.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash,