Black Adam, a superhero movie from DC and Warner Bros., easily won the Halloween weekend box office, but given how little competition it had, it underperformed.
In its second trip, the movie brought in an estimated $27.7 million from 4,402 screens. One of the largest drops for a picture in which Dwayne Johnson plays the lead was 59 percent (excluding the primary Fast & Furious franchise). Still, the film quickly surpassed $100 million at the domestic box office on Saturday and is anticipated to end Sunday with a domestic cume of $111.1 million.
Black Adam’s fall at the worldwide box office to $39 million for a foreign tally of $139 million and $250 million globally was made possible by Johnson’s star power there.
Jungle Cruise, one of Johnson’s more recent films, saw a 55 percent domestic drop in its second weekend despite a much smaller $35 million debut. Hobbs and Shaw, a Fast & Furious spinoff, launched to $60 million whereas Black Adam opened to $67 million, making it a stronger contrast. In its second weekend, Hobbs and Shaw saw a 58 percent decline.
If a superhero movie opens with more than $100 million, it’s not unusual to see its domestic sales decline by 60% or more. This includes Thor: Love and Thunder from the summer of 2022, which dropped 68 percent following a $144 million debut. Eternals, which sank 62 percent in its second appearance after debuting to $71 million (that film was regarded as a flop), and Ant-Man & the Wasp, which descended 62 percent following a $76 million launch, are two examples of superhero films that performed better than Black Adam.
