Weekend Box Office (April 19 - 21, 2019)
THIS WEEKEND Hollywood rarely uses the Easter frame to launch violent horror movies, but Warner Bros. took a chance and gave it a try opening the new R-rated supernatural thriller The Curse of La Llorona. And it paid off well. The fright film captured the number one spot debuting to an estimated $26.5M from 3,372 locations for a strong $7,860 average.
The religious-themed story appealed to fans of scary movies and the gender split was a very even 51/49 male. 60% of the crowd was over 25 and Latino audiences contributed a significant amount. The B- CinemaScore was not bad for this genre. Promoting it as being from the producers of The Conjuring universe helped distract audiences from the negative reviews. Even if La Llorona erodes quickly, it should end up as a nice little moneymaker and yet another win for the horror genre which has been on fire in recent years.
The two-week reign atop the charts came to an end for Shazam but a good hold resulted anyway. Off 29%, the Warner Bros. film grossed an estimated $17.3M pushing its total up to $121.3M. Thanos is expected to flatten the competition next weekend, but Shazam will still try to get near $150M by the end of its run. Overseas cracked the double century mark at $201.5M putting the global total at $322.8M.
The new faith-based film from Fox, Breakthrough, debuted at number three over the holiday weekend with an estimated $11.1M over the Friday-to-Sunday frame and $14.6M across the five-day span starting Wednesday. The PG-rated drama averaged $3,931 from 2,824 locations and earned fairly positive reviews.
With Avengers: Endgame on the horizon for a launch this Thursday evening, millions of fans have been catching up on past MCU films across home entertainment platforms. The fan rush is helping the most recent installment Captain Marvel too as the super hero smash saw a nice 6% uptick this weekend to an estimated $9.1M bringing its total to an even $400M through Sunday night - the seventh MCU pic to reach this mile(infinity)stone. Last year, Black Panther was off only 15% on the weekend before Infinity War opened and was still in the top ten in its tenth weekend. A handful of international markets also saw upticks this weekend and the new offshore cume is $689.5M putting the worldwide haul at $1.09 billion.
The body swap comedy Little followed with an estimated $8.5M, down 45%, for $29.4M to date for Universal. Disney crossed the century mark with Dumbo which was off only 28% to an estimated $6.8M for $101.3M domestic and $307.9M global.
Dropping 50% as a new fright film entered the game, Pet Sematary took in an estimated $4.9M giving Paramount $49.6M. The acclaimed toon Missing Link held up well over the holiday weekend dipping just 27% in its second weekend to an estimated $4.4M. With $13M so far, UA is hoping it can be a viable choice for younger children not yet ready for super hero violence.
Horror hit Us ranked ninth with an estimated $4.3M, down 37%, and $170.4M thus far for Universal. Worldwide is $245.7M. Hellboy rounded out the top ten collapsing 68% in its sophomore round to an estimated $3.9M for Lionsgate and $19.7M overall.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $96.7M which was down 16% from last year when Ready Player One debuted at number one with $41.8M; and down 38% from 2017 when The Fate of the Furious debuted on top with $98.8M.
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This column is updated three times each week: Thursday (upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday (post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday night (actuals). Opinions expressed in this column are those solely of the author.
Last Updated: April 21, 2019 at 1:10PM ET
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