Aquaman had its day in the sun and all eyes are upon Shazam now as far as the DCEU goes. The DC Comics movie is generating immense positive buzz with several outlets heralding it as a potential hit. The movie’s opening weekend estimates tell the same story, and have gone up from the tracking numbers that came last week.
According to estimates, Shazam is tracking for a $50 million opening weekend, up from $40 million last week. Compared to the $153 million that Captain Marvel achieved, that may seem like a small number but there are several other factors to be taken into consideration before dismissing it as such. First off, unlike Captain Marvel and its $150 million production budget, Shazam is budgeted more modest at under $100 million, a rather small amount by superhero movie standards. Next, the marketing for Shazam has been relatively low-key compared to say, Aquaman and Captain Marvel which were practically everywhere with their press junkets. And finally, Captain Marvel had the advantage of leading into the highly anticipated event Avengers: Endgame whereas the DCEU currently shares no such event that Shazam leads into.
It’s also worth noting that Captain Marvel was tracking for a $100 million opening a few weeks before its release, a number which increased by 50% when the movie opened. To that end, it’s possible Shazam could actually end up opening much higher; early screenings are set to take place next week, on March 23 and the reactions from those should definitely give Shazam a boost. Moreover, Warner Bros. seems fairly confident by their product this time round, similar to Aquaman and so I’m fairly positive Shazam is going to earn big numbers at the box-office. If anything, even a total of $300 – $400 million worldwide should be enough for Shazam to become a box-office hit, with the potential to go much higher through positive word of mouth. And given the estimated $160 million Shazam is being pegged as capable of making at the box-office, that number doesn’t seem out of reach.
Footage from Shazam has been relatively scant and scarce. The second trailer arrived, reusing a lot of footage from the first Comic Con trailer. More recently, a Chinese trailer-cum-TV-Spot was released that showed off quite a surprising amount of new footage, including DCEU references to Aquaman as well as Batman and Superman (it even included a child humming the classic John Williams Superman theme). Fingers crossed we actually get to see Henry Cavill cameo as Superman in the movie’s end.
Shazam hits theaters on April 5, 2019. Look for our coverage around the movie, right here on Appocalypse.
