‘Shazam’ can earn, in total, what ‘Captain Marvel’ grossed in its opening weekend and still be a big hit.
Yes, as of this posting, Captain Marvel earned an absurd $456 million in worldwide grosses, including $89m in China and $154m in North America. At a glance (erring on the side of caution), we’re probably looking at a domestic gross between $362m (if it legs like Iron Man 3) and $462m (if it triples its opening weekend like The Avengers or Iron Man). And with good-but-not-great word-of-mouth in China, we’re probably looking at a $150m total over there. So it’s just a question of how leggy it is in terms of the $213m it has earned overseas outside of China. But a mere 2.19x global multiplier (just over Batman v Superman, which opened with $422m global but then flatlined to the tune of «just» $873m worldwide) still gets it to $1 billion, so there aren’t a lot of bad scenarios here.
What this proves, among other things, is that the comic book superhero movie remains the biggest of big sub-genres when it comes to box office bankability. Occasional flukes like Fantastic Four and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance aside, the genre has been unquestionably reliable at least since Iron Man and The Dark Knight kicked things into higher gear in 2008. That’s good, because next month sees three new comic book superhero movies opening. Avengers: Endgame is probably going to make a few bucks, and Hellboy is such an odd-man-out (it’s an R-rated reboot of a property that has bombed twice before) that it barely counts. But what about the other Captain Marvel? Rights issues aside, DC Films’ Shazam will open on April 5 and try to show that Wonder Woman and Aquaman were no flukes when it comes to DC’s solo superhero flicks.
The bad news is that it won’t make anywhere near what Captain Marvel will. The good news is that it doesn’t have to. The David Sandberg-directed superhero adventure, about an orphan boy who gets magical powers that, when he says the magic word («Shazam!»), turn him into an «adult» superhero in the guise of Zachary Levi. I’m seeing the movie on Wednesday and the first batch of social media notices are aggressively positive, likening it to Big and a stereotypical Amblin fantasy. That last preview was quite funny (the last two gags gave me a hearty chuckle) and WB is doing the now-standard national sneak preview thing on March 23 (tickets aren’t yet on sale, but keep an eye out). So it’s quite possible that Shazam will be a kid-friendly smash when it opens in a few weeks.
But here’s the rub: While Captain Marvel cost $150 million (which is actually on the low side of mega-bucks superhero movies), Shazam cost just $90m. That alleged under-$100m cost is right in line with Sony’s Spider-Verse entries (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Venom) along with Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Lionsgate’s Power Rangers movie and an average Illumination toon. Point being, Captain Marvel is already a huge hit because it essentially tripled its budget in the first weekend. It’ll start being profitable in a few days even with marketing costs factored in. But Shazam doesn’t have to make as much as Captain Marvel will to be a hit. Thanks to some responsible, New Line budgeting, the Zachary Levi/Asher Angel/Mark Strong flick need only make about as much as Captain Marvel earned in its debut to qualify as a big hit.
