Black Adam, the film that Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been touting everywhere since he began work on it and ever since it’s come out, took a dive at box offices over the Thanksgiving holiday, closing out at $162 million against its budget of $195 million.
Johnson has been criticized for consistently making safe, lucrative choices. Now,Black Adammay be the latest in a string of disastrous choices for him, includingbowing out of theFast and the Furiousmega-franchise and disappointing inJungle Cruise.
Related:Steven Spielberg Says Making The Fabelmans Was The Most Daunting Project Of His Career
AsVarietyreports,Black Adamisn’t alone in a Thanksgiving weekend that’s down 10% compared to this time last year. This weekend saw Steven Spielberg’sThe Fabelmanscrash and burn and Disney tank withStrange World, with their saving grace being thecontinued strength ofBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever.Black Adamtanking seems to show audience dissatisfaction with the direction at DC. They grew tired of material seemingly being thrown at the wall to battle Disney’s massive Marvel juggernaut that’s dominating movies and TV screens everywhere, like the currently hugeBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever.
That said, despiteBlack Adamtaking a worse beating than Superman could have given him, it’s not the only movie up against the ropes during this holiday season. Movies generally tend to do decently during Thanksgiving and Christmas, as it’s a way for families to spend time together without having to deal with all that pesky forced interaction. Disney’sStrange Worldis taking a drubbing that puts it in line with recent animated failures likeEncanto,which only found its audience on Disney Plus, andLightyear, which didn’t find an audience at all. The studio is blaming it on the conservative markets of China, Malaysia, etc.not wanting LGBTQ+ content, but that only goes so far for a movie with weak trailer showings and almost no advertising.
Spielberg, past his heyday as a guaranteed box office success simply by having his name attached, is seeing one of his worst showings ever with his childhood reminiscence movie,The Fabelmans, with the 10% downturn from this time last year hitting him as well and bringing his movie to a slim $2.2 million earning against its budget of $40 million, which Universal is hoping to make up with the film hitting the On Demand markets only weeks after its initial release.
While everyone is trying to give reasons why this year looks worse (with blame falling on short distribution runs and foreign markets, but strangely no mention of the ongoing Covid pandemic or recession), only a tried and true staple like the latest Marvel Studios entry is proving to hold its own at the box office. Everything else seemsdoomed to go the way ofBlack Adam.
