1. The Curse of La Llorona (review)- $26.5M
Warner Bros. and James Wan’s Conjuring Universe continues to show Universal how you make a successful interconnected franchise of horror movies. The latest, The Curse of La Llorona opened with $26.5M domestic, $57M overall when you included overseas numbers. This was the most tangential film in the series, with its most glaring connection being the presence of Father Perez (Tony Amendola) who appeared in the first Annabelle movie. Otherwise you could get by thinking it was a complete standalone effort. By comparison, 2018’s The Nun opened with $53M domestic on its way to $365M worldwide. I don’t see this one reaching those heights, but then it doesn’t really have to, does it? Not with an estimated $9M budget for the horror based on Mexican folklore. Assuming it plays to that target audience, we could still see it top $100M overall quite easily, and perhaps do even better if they decide to build another franchise out of it.
2. Shazam!– $17.3M/$121.3M
It’s unclear if excitement for Avengers: Endgame has given other superhero films a boost, but it sure looks that way, even for the Distinguished Competition. Shazam! fell only 29% in the third weekend for $121M domestic and $322M worldwide. Those aren’t super huge numbers, but again, they don’t need to be. The $90M budget is about right for a character like Shazam that few other than hardcore DC Comics fans knew about before. I’m not sure you go much higher than that on a sequel, which I think (hope?) is inevitable.
3. Breakthrough– $11.1M
Fox’s faith-based drama Breakthrough, about a mother (played by This Is Us star Chrissy Metz) who prays for her son’s recovery after he falls through a frozen lake. The film opened with $11M which is slightly less than the $14M of 2016’s Miracles from Heaven, which ended its run with $73M. This one arguably has more star power from top-to-bottom (Mike Colter, Topher Grace, Dennis Haysbert, Josh Lucas) and the benefit of an Easter weekend, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it catches on for a similar run.
4. Captain Marvel– $9.1M/$400M
Definitely, in the case of Captain Marvel we’re seeing the beneficial impact of Endgame‘s arrival. There was a 5% increase this week for $9M and a domestic haul just over $400M. I’m sure a good chunk of that is folks taking in marathon MCU screenings, or those who wanted to wait until the last moment to see what essentially serves as an Endgame prelude. Worldwide the film has soared past the $1B mark and should have plenty of weeks to go even with another Marvel movie out there.
5. Little– $8.4M/$29.3M
6. Dumbo– $6.8M/$101.2M
7. Pet Sematary– $4.8M/$49.5M
8. Missing Link– $4.3M/$12.9M
9. Us– $4.2M/$170.4M
10. Hellboy– $3.8M/$19.6M
It was an apocalyptic 67% drop for the Hellboy reboot nobody was really asking for, ensuring Lionsgate has one massive dud on their hands. This may be the end of the Hellboy experiments for a long time. The first two movies had the imagination and draw of Guillermo Del Toro behind them, and without that it’s clear to me there isn’t much interest in Mike Mignola’s character beyond comic books.
