April is really set to be a light month for film in general as a lot of projects have avoided the month in anticipation of what Avengers: Endgame will do in terms of wide-releasing projects. This weekend saw a few new things come into the market but nothing really worked in a big way, allowing Shazam! to take the top of the box office again. The film added another $25.1 million in its second frame to bring it to a $95 million total domestic while adding another $35.9 million overseas for that to come up to $163.9 million – and a worldwide of $258.8 million in two weeks. It barely eked out a per-screen average against the second place film but the spread works as the spread works.
Little took the second slot, a film that flew under the radar for many, with a $15.5 million take for Universal in just 2,667 screens. With a “B+” CinemaScore and a $20 million budget, it’s going to do fairly well for the next couple of weeks with it leaning 65% female and 56% over 25, which will give it some legs. It had a limited international rollout and will be coming out to markets through at least August.
The other new big film that opened this weekend was the reboot of Hellboy, which suffered a huge critical slicing in the days before down to 9% on Rotten Tomatoes before starting to edge up. It did $12 million as reports of tension between producers and creative. The film leaned older and male and garnered a “C” CinemaScore, which is pretty much the same as a kiss of death in a lot of circles since even a “B” doesn’t do much to help.
Beyond that, After debuted with $6.2 million, doing better than expectations and definitely playing to women with 76% of the audience that and 73% under 25. Missing Link landed in ninth place with a $5.8 million take, almost half of expectations.
What does that leave for next weekend? Fox is bringing out Breakthrough in 2,700 screens while Disneynature has Penguins in 1,700 screens for Earth Day, both of these are landing on Wednesday. On Friday, we get New Line bringing out The Curse of La Lloronain 3,400 screens. There are also nine independent films landing with single digit screenings.
