Will Art the Clown go to Hawaii for Terrifier 3, or will he skip straight to space?
Warner Bros. Discovery’s WBD Black Adam got a modest boost from Saturday/Sunday matinees, earning $27.7 million (-59%) in its second weekend after a sharp 72% Friday-to-Friday drop. That’s not a surprise, as Shazam! pulled a 3.8x weekend multiplier in weekend two, and Dwayne Johnson’s family-friendly action fantasies generally play well with kids. Nonetheless, good news is good news, and the 59% second-weekend drop almost qualifies as leggy for a big-budget DC/Marvel superhero flick. The $195 million “Black Adam vs. The Justice Society” superhero romp has now earned $111.1 million domestically in ten days, essentially tied with Hobbs & Shaw ($108 million from a 57% second-weekend drop) after a higher ($67 million versus $60 million) opening weekend.
Conventional wisdom suggests Black Adam will get kneecapped by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in two weeks. That may be true, especially on the latter’s debut weekend, but it’s not like there will be a deluge of kid-friendly tentpoles for the rest of 2022. We’ve got Black Adam, Black Panther 2, Walt Disney’s DIS Strange World, DreamWorks’ Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Avatar: The Way of Water and that’s about it. Black Adam could remain the second choice or consensus pick (it’s 37 minutes shorter than Black Panther 2) well into December. Legs like Shazam, Thor 4 or Venom 2 after day ten get the $195 million Dwayne Johnson flick to $162-$167 million domestic.
Legs like Hobbs & Shaw (the last biggie of summer 2019) and Rampage ($101 million after a $66 million ten-day gross) get it closer to $175 million. The DC Films flick, essentially the last such picture now that the franchise has been rebranded as DC Studios, has earned $250 million worldwide.
