If you're a superhero and red features heavily in your description, it was a good news/bad news situation this weekend at the Stateside box office. First the good: Shazam! stayed in place at the top, handily seeing off the competition to earn $25.1 million, according to studio estimates.
Closing in on $100 million domestically after just a couple of weeks on release, it's another success story for the Warner Bros./DC/New Line comicbook adaptation franchise, and with $221 million in the bank worldwide, it's performing well.
Squeezed in between the two superpowered folk we find comedy Little, a new, reverse spin on the concept of Big (coincidentally more directly homaged through Shazam!'s plot). The movie launched in second place with $15.4 million. It beat the week's second wide opening, which is how we get to the other film featuring a hero associated with red. Hellboy faltered, brought low by terrible reviews and likely some lingering resentment about the loss of a third film with the character from Guillermo del Toro. $12 million in its first weekend is far below what the Mexican director's two movies kicked off with, and international figures for the film aren't available yet.
Fourth was Pet Sematary, the horror pic taking in $10 million while Dumbo dipped to fifth on $9.1 million.
Captain Marvel fell to sixth, but sill earned $8.6 million, ahead of Us at seventh with $6.9 million. Romantic novel adaptation After arrived in the charts at eighth with $6.2 million, but sadly the biggest loser of the week, in terms of wide releases, was not Hellboy. That dubious honour goes to Laika animation's latest, Missing Link, which made just $5.8 million despite launching on 3,413 screens. It was the lowest opening for one of the company's films ever. Finally, at 10th, The Best Of Enemies took in $2 million.
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