LordNox

With Shazam its clearly more about the audience reception to the universe its connected to. Had Shazam been a Marvel move and referenced Marvel characters chances are that it would easily have passed 500M WW. Shazam is a movie with over 90 % on RT and an A cinemascore rating. Very few such superhero movies underperform at the box office and with Shazam i think the state of its universe hinders the movie rather than elevates it.

However much we want DC to be at the same popularity level as Marvel the fact is that its not. We can debate the reasons why that is the case but the divide is pretty big.

Shazam was the first time DC tried doing what Marvel does all the time; Introducing new superheroes and make them instant hits. What Shazam is showing is that at the moment the DCEU is not popular enough for DC to be able to do the same. The best strategy is probably for DC to milk Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman a few years and then when the franchise is more popular introduce the more unknown characters into the universe.

I think the most disappointing factor is that Marvel time and time again take unknown characters and make them into hits. With Shazam it is proven that even if DC makes a good movie about an unknown character they can't do the same. So we might see DC cling more into the likes of Batman, Wonder Woman etc instead of taking chances like Shazam again.

The expectation has to be lowered. Shazam will clearly make tens of million less than Ant-Man in the US. Will probably be enough to make a profit but if they want the sequel to be a hit they will have to change much and add more action into it.

Kind of ironic that the audiences rewarded WB for making Suicide Squad by giving the movie a whopping 750M gross, while they reward WB for making Shazam by giving the movie half of what Suicide Squad made. It shows that RT score don't really matter and that audiences and critics have different taste.

What is the max Shazam can do in NA? 150M? I was hoping for smaller drops due to an A cinemascore but the drops are similar to Dumbo.

Yeah, Shazam is dropping unusually much for a movie that recieved an A cinemascore. If this continues maybe 140-150M is the max it will do in NA.

Yeah with a budget of only 50M they probably should have made the movie more lower scale with mostly practical effects. Trying to make a large scale CGI movie on that kind of budget will just create terrible badly done CGI scenes.

Shazam seems to have to make the most of its weekends because it won't gross much on the weekdays.

Hellboy as a character has a pretty niche appeal. If even well recieved Hellboy movies that got over 80 % on RT like Del Toro's movies struggled to make a profit at the box office then a terrible Hellboy movie will do even worse. The opening will be small and the terrible word of mouth and Endgame will kill any legs for Hellboy. Another terrible bomb for Lionsgate.

So you still think audiences hated Shazam and that it has so bad word of mouth that it will drop like a stone this weekend?

Due to Endgame i can see Shazam's legs getting cut. But it would be very unpresedented for Shazam to have bad drops already this week. If that would happen then something wrong happened with Shazam's cinemascore. Because if a superhero movie isn't hated it doesn't drop like crazy the first week after a pretty small opening like Shazam had. We will have our answer tomorrow and the weekend if everything is like predicted or if Cinemascore got the audience reaction wrong.

The point is that even you admit that the general word of mouth is good for Shazam. So the drops shouldn't be because of word of mouth reasons. But we will just have to see tomorrow and at the weekend if you are right. There are no superhero movies that have recieved an A cinemascore and then had bad legs at the box office. If that would happen for Shazam it would be totally unexpected in the genre. So it doesn't make sense for your theory to have any merit, because why would Shazam do much worse than all other superhero movies that recieved the same score?

Then how could Shazam have recieved an A cinemascore rating? The only way you get an A cinemascore rating is if the audiences liked the movie. Its impossible to get an A if the consensus of the audiences wasn't positive.

Damn, I always expected Shazam to have a mediocre reception in China, but i still thought it would reach about 80M, but now it won't even reach half of that already small box office. Shazam is most probably the most hated Superhero movie in many, many years in China. If i would make a guess why Shazam is so hated in China i think its a combination of the humor not working at all, little action, demon possession of the bad guy. The personalities of the characters as well as the foster home setting probably doesn't work at all in China. Don't forget that China has a very traditional view on family and things like foster homes are practically unheard of there. You could make the case that the values Shazam project is the opposite of Confucian values. China is basically a dead market for Shazam. So if they make the sequel similar to the first one its questionable if it would be worth it to release and market it in China at all.

Has any Superhero movie that recieved an A cinemascore ever dropped this much the first monday? These numbers are simply mindboggling.

Before Wonder Woman came out Marvel fans were fuelling a campaign that the movie would bomb. Where those Marvel fans incels?

My point is that the faces of the DCEU are not fuelling toxic fanwars. The likes of Cavill, Affleck, Gadot never talked crap about Marvel. While Marvel actors have chosen the route to big up Marvel by talking crap about DC. If you really want a toxic fanwar to lessen then the least you could do is to argue that the faces of the franchise shouldn't fuel the fire. When Marvel actors say things like the DCEU being so bad its not even near the MCU like Hemsworth did, not only do they put their own fanbase into a frenzy they also make DC fans more toxic against Marvel.

You do know that there are incredibly many marvel fans on twitter celebrating the fact that they think Shazam bombed? Marvel fans want DC out of business all together. They want DC to do so badly at the box office that no DC movie will ever be made. That is why they celebrate every time a DC movie gets bad reviews or underperform. And the stars of the MCU are feeding that toxic fanbase by legitimizing it with the MCU stars constantly talking crap about DC. Instead of feeding a toxic fanbase Marvel stars should rise above it and do what DC actors do; Praise the other side. When Zachary Levi went out his way to praise Captain Marvel and Brie Larson and told everyone to watch Captain Marvel, Brie Larson could have responsed by doing the same to Zachary Levi and Shazam. She refused to do so. Thus showing once again that MCU actors refuses to rise above a toxic fanbase that hates everything DC.

And i guess you applaud Robert Downey Jr for hating Nolan's Dark knight for the only reason that it was a DC movie? On twitter there are a lot of Marvel fans celebrating the fact that they think Shazam bombed. But of course MCU fans are never toxic.

Seems that WB don't care that Shazam wasn't well recieved in Asia and they are making Shazam more for domestic consumption.

And i guess Robert Downey Jr hating on the Dark knight was because its an overrated DC movie and not a Marvel masterpiece like Iron Man?

So because Brolin made one DC movie that sucked it means every DC movie made the last 30 years also sucked? Probably sounds like logical reasoning for an MCU fanboy.

But that is my point. DC movies can only do well in Asia if they have the things you mentioned while a Marvel movie can star no Asian and yet break bank there. Just a totally different level of popularity of DC and Marvel in those markets.