Shazam! Fury of the Gods opened to a pathetic $3.4 million on Thursday night.
The sequel to 2019’s modest hit is already predicted to bomb with a $35 million opening weekend. The news of this awful Thursday night take is making those predictions look wise and accurate:
New Line’s DC sequel Shazam! Fury of the Gods got off the ground at 3 p.m. Thursday and posted $3.4M in previews at 3,400 theaters.
That’s less than the first Shazam! back in April 2019, which did $5.9M in its Thursday previews (off showtimes that began at 4 p.m.). Shazam! also had another $3.3M in previous Fandango previews back in the day, for a grand preview total of $9.2M before a $20.3M Friday and a $53.5M opening.
With superhero fatigue hitting everywhere, these men-in-spandex movies are front-loaded like never before. So a devastating $35 million opening is especially bad news for this $100 million sequel (not counting promotion costs).
A good example is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which opened better ($104 million) than the first two Ant-Man movies ($57 million and $78 million) and promptly went over the box office cliff. Ant-Man 3 is about played out and has only grossed $201 million domestic and $451 million worldwide. Ant-Man and the Wasp grossed $216 million domestic and $622 million worldwide. Ant-Man grossed $180 million domestic and $519 million worldwide.
Despite that great opening, Ant-Man 3 will be lucky to squeak over $500 million worldwide.
This is the long of saying that if Shazam! Fury of the Gods does indeed open to a weak $35 million; it’s probably doomed. The first Shazam! opened to $57 million in 2019.
Knowing all this, why are the morons behind Shazam! Fury of the Gods running around bragging about how gay the movie is?
Why would these morons think anyone wants to watch one of Shazam’s fellow superheroes break the storytelling spell with some kind of declaration about his sexual preference for other hairy guys?
Nobody wants to see that.
And as I’ve said before, the glaring hypocrisy of this Shazam! character is outrageous. He declines an invitation to a strip club, which is perfectly understandable for a gay man, but straight people are homophobes if they don’t want to expose themselves to homosexuality.
Shazam! was on its way to a viable franchise. The first movie didn’t make much money, but the audience goodwill seemed primed for sequels that would earn more and more.
But Shazam! went woke, and what happens when you go woke…?
Lol.
Dear Hollywood: Make gay movies for gay people and straight movies for straight people.
Duh.
Oh, and anyone who wants to smear me as a homophobe will have to explain all the lesbian porn I own, okay?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.