Black Adam Global Box Office Unlikely to Pass Justice League
Global box office projections are showing that Black Adam likely doesn’t have the juice to earn more than the gross of Justice League. The film stars Dwayne « The Rock » Johnson as the titular antihero, a slave from ancient Kahndaq who was given the powers of Shazam before being imprisoned for 5,000 years. After he is awakened in the modern era, the Justice Society arrives to attempt to neutralize the potential threat he poses to the world while he figures out whether he is worthy of being a champion for a nation he no longer recognizes.
Per Collider, Black Adam has earned a global box office total over $350 million in its fourth weekend. In spite of the fact that its opening weekend was the highest ever for a film led by Dwayne Johnson, it is now projected to achieve a final total less than many of those films’ global grosses. It’s also underperforming in terms of the DC Universe. Although it will easily surpass the $366 million total of 2019’s Shazam!, it is looking more or less impossible that Black Adam will be able to beat the $657.9 million total of 2017’s Justice League, which is the next-highest grossing DCU film.
What Could the Rest of Black Adam’s Box Office Run Look Like?
Justice League was considered a box office disappointment at the time, because its global gross barely doubled its $300 million budget, which was counted without publicity costs. Black Adam faces a similar budget problem, as it continues to struggle to justify its $200 million price tag. If it fails to surpass Justice League, that will make it the fifth worst-performing film in the DCU, just ahead of Shazam! There is also the matter that all three titles below Shazam! were the ones that were hit with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and thus compromised: Birds of Prey, which had its run cut short by theater closures, plus Wonder Woman 1984 and The Suicide Squad, which both featured simultaneous HBO Max streaming premieres.
One reason that Black Adam’s box office is looking disappointing is the fact that it won’t be opening in China. This is something that has been an issue for many American blockbusters in the pandemic era. Although a film like the Marvel Cinematic Universe box office megahit Spider-Man: No Way Home proved that superhero projects can do just fine in a global marketplace without China, it’s still a huge hurdle to overcome.
Additionally, Black Adam has likely already made the bulk of the money it is going to make during its run. Each subsequent week that it runs in theaters will likely earn it a more and more paltry sum, especially in the domestic box office, where it is already nearly as low as $10 million per weekend. Even with a boost from international markets, there doesn’t seem to be much gas left in the film’s tank. There is also the matter that the latest MCU film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, just opened on October 11, so the public’s attention has already moved on to the latest superhero offering.
