Shazam! Fury of the Gods just had one of the worst box office openings of any DCEU movie and far lower than the opening weekend box office of the original Shazam!. With the arrival of James Gunn's new DCU movie plan, the universe is expected to go through some level of soft-reboot, leaving Shazam's future in question after Shazam! Fury of the Gods, especially since Gunn already said “Shazam has always been off in his own part of the DCEU,” creating the sense that WB wasn't particularly invested in the sequel - a perception only exacerbated by the movie's soft marketing.
The first Shazam! movie had one of the DCEU's best Rotten Tomatoes scores, but was still the lowest opening weekend box office for a DCEU movie at the time of its release, but Shazam! Fury of the Gods has far worse reviews and a far worse opening weekend at the box office. The DCEU has been a source of drama for both reviews and box office for years, and while new co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran are looking to finally add a sense of stability to the franchise, there's still a period of transition before the new slate begins, so it's hard for audiences know how invested they should be in the remaining pre-Gunn slate.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods' Opening Weekend Box Office Earned Less Than Half of Shazam 1
Shazam! Fury of the Gods opened to $30.5 million in its first week at the domestic box office. Meanwhile, the first Shazam! opened to $53.5 million in March 2019 and went on to earn $140.4 million domestically and $366 million worldwide. Shazam! Fury of the Gods' $30.5 million opening weekend box office is a 43 percent drop (a $23 million decrease) from Shazam!'s opening weekend. It's not uncommon for franchises to see a sophomore slump with a first sequel, but Shazam! Fury of the Gods' box office descent is a far bigger drop than a typical sequel dip.
Theaters are still struggling to recover from the pandemic shutdowns, but the recovery is too far along to be used as a scapegoat for Shazam! Fury of the Gods' poor box office. More than likely it's a confluence of factors, with post-COVID box office, a sophmore slump, the looming DCEU reboot, poor marketing, and bad reviews all taking a share of the blame. While Shazam! Fury of the Gods' reviews only earned it a 53 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, its audience score is 82 percent, identical to Shazam!'s Rotten Tomatoes audience score, although the more positive audience reaction doesn't seem to have positively impacted the movie's opening weekend box office.
Shazam: Fury of the Gods' Box Office Opening is One of the DCEU's Worst
Compared to the rest of the DCEU, Shazam! Fury of the Gods' opening weekend box office looks even worse. The DCEU's $79.8 million average opening weekend is almost $50 million higher than Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and that's including Wonder Woman 1984's $16.7 million and The Suicide Squad's $26.2 million, both of which were released while some theaters were still closed and were simultaneously available on HBO Max. Excluding those movies, the DCEU's average opening weekend box office jumps to over $92 million, more than 300 percent of Shazam! Fury of the Gods' opening box office.
Even Birds of Prey, itself a notorious DCEU box office flop, beat Shazam! Fury of the Gods' opening weekend box office by nearly $3 million, earning $33 million in its own debut. The DCEU box office is having a rough streak, with every single release since Wonder Woman in 2017 failing to debut over $100 million; however, Aquaman still went on to gross over $1 billion after its $67.9 million debut. Even with all the marketing power Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson could muster, Black Adam only opened to $67 million, so Shazam! Fury of the Gods is merely the newest installment in a progressively fading DC movie box office.
Can Shazam! Fury of the Gods Still Earn a Profit?
Fortunately, since Shazam isn't one of the most widely known DC characters, and the first movie's box office was fairly soft Shazam! Fury of the Gods' budget is reportedly only $100, so is it possible it could still make a profit despite its low opening weekend? If it performs similarly to the first Shazam!'s box office for the rest of its run, Shazam! Fury of the Gods could earn as much as $80 million domestically and $210 worldwide in the rosiest of circumstances, which would be more than the reported $100 million budget, but not enough to clear the 2.5 times budget rule of thumb to typically used to calculate profitability.
The 2.5 times budget calculus is used to factor in marketing and other expenses, so if Shazam! Fury of the Gods' light marketing, Warner Bros. Discovery may have cut some corners to improve that break-even point by a few million dollars, but even with big marketing savings and the most optimistic box office outcome, Shazam! Fury of the Gods has only a slim shot at a sliver of profitability. With James Gunn's new DC Movie slate in the works, it's doubtful this changes the DC movie plans in any significant way, although it does mean Gunn has very little incentive to hold on to Shazam's little corner of the DCEU.
With negative reviews and an abysmal box office opening, things couldn't look much worse for Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Even with its low budget, it could still be a costly box office flop for WB and DC. Of course, box office isn't an indicator of quality, critic reviews are subjective, and fairly strong audience scores indicate the movie isn't a total bust. It may not translate into critical acclaim or make it a huge box office draw, but if the audience score can be trusted, time may be a little more friendly to Shazam! Fury of the Gods than its lackluster reviews and opening weekend box office seem to indicate.
