Suffering from blistering reviews, Neil Marshall’s reboot of Hellboy came in third at the box office this weekend. While Marshall is a favorite of genre fans, bad buzz and turned-up noses from Hellboy fans made sure the movie only earned $12 million against a $50 million budget.
Faring much better was Shazam, holding onto the top spot in its second week of release. With a weekend gross of $25 million, the film should pass $100 million by this time next week. The new body-switch comedy, Little, came in second with $15 million, nearly recouping its $20 million budget in three days.
Rounding out the top five were Pet Sematary, which only dropped 59% in its second week of release. This is better than most horror films. The average second-week drop-off for a scary movie is 75% to 80%. Tim Burton’s live-action Dumbo was in fifth place, with $9 million.
Recapping, here’s how we thought the numbers would play out.
1) Shazam – $23 million
2) Missing Link – $20 million
3) Hellboy – $15 million
4) Little – $14.5 million
5) Dumbo – $9.5 million
Here’s how the weekend box office ended up.
1) Shazam – $25 million
2) Little – $15 million
3) Hellboy -$12 million
4) Pet Sematary – $10 million
5) Dumbo – $9 million
Look for things to change considerably over the Easter weekend as the faith-oriented movie, Breakthrough, sees a Wednesday release. That’s two days to get a jump on The Curse of La Llorona, which comes out Friday, April 19.
