November 11, 2024

‘Shazam!’ Keeps Box-Office Lead as ‘Hellboy’ Flounders

But a mix of wisecracks and superpowers is no guarantee of success, as evidenced by another new movie: Lionsgate’s “Hellboy,” financed by Millennium Media.

That film, a bloody, R-rated affair with a cherry-red, semi-demonic superhero (David Harbour) at its helm, landed in third place with a dreary $12 million in North American theaters this weekend, well below analysts’ expectations. A reboot of the Guillermo del Toro movies (themselves based on comic books by Mike Mignola), the new “Hellboy” was directed by Neil Marshall, with Harbour taking over the title role from Ron Perlman. It had a production budget of $50 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

[Read the New York Times review of “Hellboy.”]

Though it keeps the unserious tone that helped del Toro’s movies develop a cult following and stand out from other superhero stories, the new “Hellboy” arrived to poor reviews from critics — it currently holds a 15 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

More successful was Universal’s “Little,” which landed in second place with $15.5 million, according to Comscore, which compiles box-office data. It had a reported production budget of around $20 million.

“Little,” a comedy directed by Tina Gordon, is like “Shazam!” in reverse: The story is about an adult C.E.O. (Regina Hall) who gets transformed into her 13-year-old self (Marsai Martin).

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/14/movies/shazam-hellboy-box-office.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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