Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam arrived at the weekend box office, and just like the titular anti-hero, the new release took no prisoners.
Black Adam flew to the top of the charts with an estimated $67 million start at the box office, the best opening for a DC movie not starring Batman or the Joker since 2018’s Aquaman.
Black Adam was able to crush the competition based on Johnson’s Arnold Schwarzenegger-like promotion of the film and DC fans looking for yet another possible launching point for a successful DCEU.
While the film impressed ticket buyers with a 90% Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score and a positive B+ Cinemascore, critics were not very high on the film, with an aggregate score of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The superhero slugfest also marks Johnson’s biggest opening of his career (with the actor in the starring role). Will Johnson fans who may not be DC die-hards be interested in seeing Black Adam in the weeks and months to come? This factor will weigh in heavily on how high his film can climb, as DC movies in the past (like most super hero fare) are top heavy during the first weekend.
Last week’s champ, Halloween Ends, slipped to fourth place with a paltry $8 million, proving that fans preferred to check out the movie on Peacock or not at all. Fellow horror film Smile beat the film this weekend ($8.5 million), and the grinning movie has been in theaters for almost an entire month. While Universal’s pandemic ploy to debut the film in theaters and on Peacock simultaneously may have attracted a few more subscribers, it certainly didn’t help theater business (or the theater industry in general).
Check back next week to see how Black Adam fares in its second weekend.