There was a lot of pressure on the Black Adam movie with its release for many reasons. First, don’t forget that DC Comics was supposed to have four film releases this year. Three live-action movies in the DCEU and one animated feature. However, delays changed everything, so we’d get two live-action films and the animated feature. But then, that changed too! At the end of all the shifts, the live-action and animated features starring The Rock remained. The animated movie did decently, and then the live-action product got blasted by critics, leaving many to wonder how it would do at the box office.
The answer is “pretty darn good.” While it doesn’t compare to recent Marvel Studios films, that’s not a fair metric to go for here. We must compare it to other DCEU films and films starring The Rock. To that end, Black Adam came out strong with a $67 million opening domestically. As you can see in the tweet below, that makes it the biggest opening weekend for The Rock when he’s the lead. That means you can’t include the Fast & Furious films he co-starred in:
What’s impressive about this number is that it almost got to the level of Aquaman, which made a billion dollars and beat the characters’ rival in Shazam. Many hope those two meet up in a future movie, and a sequel definitely feels plausible after this first weekend. But, of course, it’s not just the domestic box office that matters here. The international box office matters too. To that end, the film did well overseas, bringing the projected total for the movie to $140 million in its first weekend:
It also should be noted that this is just the “projected” numbers due to Sunday not being over yet. It could get higher by a couple of million, depending on how things turn out. Another thing to note is that after the critical bashing the film took, it went from an $80 million projection to a $60 million projection. But as the fans have made clear, they love this movie. They countered the critical score on Rotten Tomatoes with a 90% audience approval rating. That’s very impressive, and The Rock has made it clear time and time again that this movie was about making the fans happy. He got that done.
So what now? That is the question. Right now, all we can do is wait. While the movie had a great debut, it has to sustain those numbers to make back its costs and earn some profit. But if nothing else, the film is a sign of good things to come. While we won’t spoil the post-credits scene, there are plenty of directions for Black Adam could go should he get another movie.
Source: Twitter
