An uncertain cinematic future?
Bland antagonists?
Poor critical consensus?
Was one of these the reason the latest DC flick failed to bring in the big bucks this
weekend… or, all three?
It now seems clear that "Shazam!
Fury of the Gods" is yet another commercial disappointment in the DC superhero blockbuster
realm.
Its opening weekend box office take in the neighborhood of $30 million falls well short
of its reported $125 million budget, and some of the film's cast and crew seem to be assuming
a defensive posture online.
Star Rachel Zegler recently took to Twitter to decry, quote, "senselessly mean" responses
to the movie and called it, "Actually very good."
Meanwhile, in a comment on Reddit that was since deleted, "Fury of the Gods" director
David F. Sandberg made this intriguing statement:
"I saw where this was heading a long time ago.
I'll be alright though.
I got paid all my money upfront."
You don't need to be a box office analyst to see that "Shazam!
Fury of the Gods" has experienced a softer-than-expected opening weekend and has been met with a collective
shrug by much of the viewing public.
Why'd it happen?
It's not something that can be pinned definitively on one factor, but there are several possibilities
as to why the "Fury of the Gods" opening weekend ended up being more like a… minor tantrum
of the gods.
Everyone knows by now that the DC Extended Universe is in a transitional period, with
the projects already in the pipeline when James Gunn and Peter Safran took the creative
reins of the live-action DC Comics franchise making their way onto screens.
The future of every big-screen DC superhero is now in doubt, with the upcoming "The Flash"
purportedly serving as a "reset" to the DC cinematic universe as we know it.
That means that a movie like "Shazam!
Fury of the Gods" is caught in the middle, with no clear indication whether its plot
or characters will be part of the larger DC tapestry.
In a perfect world, a comedy-adventure blockbuster like this would stand on its own, but with
the cinematic ecosystem being the way it is now, those connections to a larger saga tend
to be significant.
You can see just how significant this factor is by comparing and contrasting the commercial
performance of films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe to those in the DCEU.
Shazam is a very important character in DC Comics, and it's possible that there will
be someplace for him in future DC cinematic projects, but that place seems currently up
in the air.
And the film might be suffering commercially as a result.
Not even the last-minute pitch revealing an appearance by Wonder Woman in the movie could
neutralize this threat.
Part and parcel with behind-the-scenes shake ups at DC HQ is the fact that audiences have
grown weary of what big-screen DC Comics adaptations have to offer.
"Shazam!
Fury of the Gods" is not the first DC movie to get a tepid response: "Black Adam" also
qualifies by some measure as a box office bomb, and even James Gunn's take on "The Suicide
Squad" managed to earn that designation as well.
There's a reason that the Warner Bros. chiefs have decided to reset the DCEU and take it
in a new direction.
Fan enthusiasm and dependable box office receipts just aren't there, and the dismal opening
weekend for "Fury of the Gods" is only the latest example of that in action.
There does seem to be some positive buzz building around "The Flash," and its twin Batmen of
Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton are a good not-so-secret weapon to have in its arsenal.
So it's definitely possible that audiences and fans can be energized about these characters
again.
But "Fury of the Gods" isn't the project to make that happen.
Perhaps it would be a different story if "Shazam!
Fury of the Gods" had actually delivered on the promise of the post-credits scene in the
first movie.
In what has been called the biggest failure of "Shazam!
Fury of the Gods," the prospect of a film featuring the menacing Mister Mind as its
chief antagonist was once again punted down the road.
No offense to Helen Mirren or Lucy Liu, but the supervillains in "Fury of the Gods" have
a generic, monotonous quality compared to the quirky threat that a super-intelligent
criminal worm like Mister Mind can provide.
Concepts like an evil telepathic worm are a big part of what makes superhero comics
special, but it all too often feels like their big-screen counterparts tend to shy away from
anything too off-beat or "weird."
However, love it or hate it, you have to admit "Ant-Man: Quantumania" is an exception to
that phenomenon.
A "Shazam!"
sequel featuring Mister Mind could have been just the creative shot in the arm the franchise
needed for box office success.
The days of film critics being able to make or break a movie's box office fortunes are
probably long gone, but critical consensus can still matter to the public, especially
when a film like "Shazam!
Fury of the Gods" is on otherwise shaky ground.
"Fury of the Gods" currently sports an emerald green 53% Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes,
as critics have taken aim at the film's purported weaknesses, its lack of focus, and its failure
to recapture the lighting-in-a-bottle success of its predecessor.
Some viewers will disagree, of course, and the film is scoring much better on the audience
side, but it's still tough to discount a poor critical consensus for a film that many prospective
viewers were probably already on the fence about going to see anyway.
For them, enough bad reviews just might have pushed "Fury of the Gods" from "check out
in the theaters" to "I'll just wait for streaming."