With “Avengers: Endgame” coming out next week, Easter weekend at the box office has been notably slower than usual with an estimated 22% drop compared to last year’s holiday totals. But it is still looking like a successful weekend for Warner Bros. as it’s on track to take the top two spots on the charts with newcomer “The Curse of La Llorona” and the third weekend of “Shazam!”
“La Llorona,” which was produced by New Line on a $9 million budget, earned $11.8 million from 3,372 screens on Friday and is expected to beat tracker expectations with a $26 million weekend opening. The low budget will make this a profitable film for Warner, though it will likely have a very frontloaded performance at the box office given the film’s tepid word of mouth and “Avengers” on the horizon. The film has a 34% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a B- from opening night audience polls on CinemaScore.
“Shazam!” will take $16 million in its third weekend, a 35% drop, and push its domestic total to $120 million.
In third on the charts is “Breakthrough,” the first Fox film released since the studio was bought by Disney and one of the final films that will be produced by Fox 2000. The Christian film opened on Wednesday and is projected to make $11 million through the weekend, giving it a 5-day opening of $14.5 million from 2,824 screens to meet tracker expectations.
While many faith-based films tend to perform poorly with critics, “Breakthrough” did better with a fairly positive 63% RT score to go with the usually strong A CinemaScore from enthusiastic Christian audiences.
In fourth is Marvel Studios’ “Captain Marvel,” which is actually seeing a rise in its grosses thanks to audiences coming back to rewatch the film prior to the release of “Avengers.” In its seventh weekend, “Captain Marvel” will hit the $400 million domestic mark with a $9 million weekend total, a 6% increase over last weekend.
That late rebound at the box office from Marvel fans puts it above the second weekend of Universal’s “Little,” which is holding respectably with $8.5 million for a 45% drop and a $29 million 10-day total. “Captain Marvel” is also now set to pass the $412.5 million domestic total of “Wonder Woman,” having already passed that DC film’s global total with $1.07 billion grossed globally.