Despite a strong start and being first each weekend, it seems this will end up as a “soft bomb” meaning it didn’t technically lose money in the box office versus the production budget, but it also didn’t make enough money to cover marketing nor did it hit expectations.
After three weeks of release, “Black Adam” has generated $137.3 million in North America and $319 million globally. It’s a solid result, one that improves greatly upon another recent DC entry, 2021’s “The Suicide Squad” (which tapped out with $168 million globally while playing simultaneously on HBO Max in North America) and it’ll soon pass 2019’s Shazam!” (which earned $366 million worldwide). However, the latest Warner Bros. standalone superhero story still has ways to go to justify its massive $195 million production budget.
$195 million production budget, plus another $150 million for marketing, puts the movie’s box office performance slightly below the total studio spend. Unfortunately for WBD, the movie will not get theater play in China on top of that, which could’ve added another $100-$200 million.
We saw it on vacation on a bad weather day and it was ok. I’m pretty burned out on super hero stuff myself, but eh. The only thing that really stood out was Pierce Brosnan. I generally don’t like him, but holy crap he owned the hell out of that movie.
Now available for premium digital video purchase or rental (IIRC $30 purchase and $20 rental).
I quite enjoyed it, although I went in with expectations set from the reviews. Loved The Rock playing Black Adam. I wasn’t familiar with Black Adam going in (other than the trailers) and thought he was a fun character. Pierce Brosnan was great as Dr. Fate. Hawkman on the other hand was pretty annoying character-wise (acting was fine). I mean there’s being a straight-arrow and then there’s being ridiculously uptight. If that’s his deal in the comics then fair enough, I did not like his character though.
I had a good time and did not mind paying a premium price for it. I wanted to watch a fun, not very serious action movie and it delivered.
There’s like two or three completely different versions of Hawkman in the comics. One of them is an alien from a warrior world which I think makes him pretty humorless. That’s probably the version in this movie.
I watched it today as well. Based on the trailer, what I’d heard about it here, and, frankly, just the fact that it was DC, I really wasn’t expecting to like it very much. But I actually enjoyed it pretty well, much to my surprise! It was entirely predictable, but it was actually pretty…fun, which is something DC needs.
Wish I hadn’t already known about the stinger. Would’ve been a great surprise!
Watched this on HBO and to my surprise and almost in spite of myself, I liked it. It was really dumb, but had good action, and I kind of like this “random team of misfits” thing that DC has going on. Also it’s a superhero film with an almost entirely non-white cast, which is something.
I didn’t realize Black Adam was already on HBO Max, I’ll have to crank it up. I was aware of the character from being a comic nerd as a kid, but even Shazam is kind of a minor player in the comic book world. So I was pretty surprised when I heard they were making a Black Adam movie. That sound you hear is DIsney & Warner Brothers scraping the super-powered character barrel.
In reading the news about Henry Cavill getting the super-boot, one story mentioned that Black Adam topped out at $395 million world-wide box office. So under Hollywood accounting practices, WB will probably claim it lost $200 million and and they won’t have to pay any sucker points. It also means, especially with James Gunn and Peter Safran whacking DC superhero movies left & right, there won’t be a Black Adam 2.
I was feeling sorry for Mr. Cavill losing his Superman and Witcher gigs, I liked him in both. But then I saw Amazon did win the bidding war for the rights to Warhammer 40,000. Amazon signed him to star and be an Executive Producer before they even had the rights locked up (he actually plays 40k & paints figures they said), so I’m guessing he’ll be an actual active EP and it is not just a credit.
I liked it, which is something I can’t say about any of the other DC universe movies, apart from Nolan’s batmans(batmen? No, Batmans…) and maybe one of the wonder women(lol). That said, i wouldn’t rush out to watch it again anytime soon…
Are nolan’s batmans even considered to be in the DC universe proper? I’m guessing not…which kind of begs the question, which gotham/batman/batman’s villains are considered canon?
For comparison, Thor: Love and Thunder did 760 mil and that movie was not generally well received. Black Adam did half of that. I think at this point Gunn and crew are going to pull the plug on the entire shebang and do a full reboot of the DCU. So I doubt we see another Black Adam movie with Johnson. The only thing that may survive the purge is Shazam.
I saw this on HBO and thought it was mostly a stinker. I still watched all 2 hours of it though and did get into a few parts. Why are DC movies always so dull? It had fine action, but why did I have to endure so many explanations of the plot? The big reveal is… an explanation. It starts with… an explanation. And then the complications all required explanations too. It’s just… why?
Probably because they hew closer to the comic logic, where new big bads just show up to provide drama and the rest gets filled in over the next decade or so. Black Adam was always just a foil to Shazam, with a bit of “vague Middle Eastern” thrown in.
Watched it last night. 2 hours of which at least a 3rd didn’t even have the title character in it, yet it frlt like 5 or 6 different scripts crammed together.
Another good comparison is to The Batman; another DC (but not DCEU) movie released this year, and did a very healthy $770M. The one-off Joker similarly was a bigger commercial success than anything in the DCEU.
So it’s not that the DC properties are somehow tainted, it’s that just something wrong with the DCEU. Not sure whether it’s due to Snyder’s loser-stench still remaining on the franchise, but burning it all down and starting fresh has to be the right move.
It made a profit, but mostly since it didn’t cost a lot. The box office was the lowest for DCEU movies not released during the pandemic. (Also, it was the second best DCEU movie.)
