With three weeks to go before it premiers in theaters, Shazam! is currently tracking for a $40 million domestic box office take for its opening weekend.
That amount is about 45% below the opening weekend box office of Warners’s last superhero film, Aquaman. However, that film showed some legs at the box office, going on to do $334 million domestic and $1.1 billion worldwide in the crowded Christmas season, so Shazam!‘s path to profit shouldn’t be too hard.
Of course, Shazam! has a lower production cost versus Aquaman, $100 million to the $150 million spent on Aquaman, so the bar for getting the film into the black is much lower.
A superhero version of the Tom Hanks fantasy Big, Shazam! tells the story of pre-teen Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who is given the ability to transform into a superhero (Zachary Levi) when he speaks the name of the wizard (Djimon Hounson) who granted him this power.
It should be remembered that this is early tracking and there are a number of factors that could cause this figure to move up or down as we approach Shazam’s release weekend. One factor that may drive the box office expectations up could be positive word-of-mouth spinning out from the sneak previews of the film that the studio will be holding next weekend.
