‘Shazam,’ ‘Ant-Man’ Sequel Struggles Show Superheroes Aren’t Bulletproof at the Box Office

There was a time last decade when superhero films — even when they weren’t getting rave critic and audience reviews — were a near-lock to be profitable at the box office. The recent struggles of DC’s “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and Marvel’s “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” show that’s not a guarantee anymore.

This past weekend, Warner Bros. and New Line released “Shazam 2” in just over 4,000 theaters and saw box office returns that fell below expectations. The sequel was never expected to come close to the $53.5 million of the first “Shazam,” but they also fell below projections of a $35-$38 million launch, sinking to $30.5 million domestic and $65.5 million worldwide against a production budget said to be at least $100 million.

By comparison, “Shazam 2” fell below the $33 million opening of “Birds of Prey,” the last DC film released before the pandemic and which barely reached break-even range against its $84 million budget. Chances for long legs are also low as “Shazam 2” has a B+ on CinemaScore, same as last fall’s ill-fated “Black Adam.”

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While “Shazam 2” could still see substantial turnout from families, the performance of other recent superhero films that failed to get an A or A- on CinemaScore suggests that general audiences will be less likely to show up in the coming weekends. Given the competition coming from “Scream VI” and “Creed III,” as well as other upcoming films like “John Wick: Chapter 4,” that’s a crushing blow for “Shazam.”

Meanwhile, Marvel Studios’ “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” has finished its fifth weekend in theaters with a $205 million domestic and $462 million global total. This likely means that the launch of the MCU’s Phase Five, while still past the break-even mark, will fail to even reach $500 million at the global box office. That’s not what was expected for a film introducing Jonathan Majors as Marvel’s new Big Bad. And unlike Marvel’s 2021 films “Shang-Chi” and “Eternals,” it doesn’t have COVID-19 as an excuse.

Both “Shazam 2” and “Quantumania” hit theaters during rocky periods for their respective franchises. “Shazam 2” is the first DC film to hit theaters since James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as heads of DC Studios and announced a reboot that will begin with “Superman: Legacy” — written and directed by Gunn — in July 2025.

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Insiders at Warner Bros. told TheWrap that meeting the $35 million projection mark would have been seen by the studio as a solid result, but believe that the upcoming reboot did a number on general audience interest that Gunn and Safran’s work will be able to overcome when it arrives.

Meanwhile, “Quantumania” is fighting against the growing dissatisfaction among fans towards much of Marvel’s recent output. Its box office struggles are the first serious sign that the drop in audience approval since the release of “Eternals” in November 2021 is turning into damage that can be seen on the charts, even if it’s still making more than recent DC films like “Black Adam” and “Shazam 2.”

But the common thread for both “Shazam 2” and “Ant-Man 3” is that without the strong audience goodwill that would have come from a well-functioning, hype-generating cinematic universe, they have fallen to tepid critical and audience reviews. Both films have a critics’ Rotten Tomatoes score below 55% and earned scores of 3.5/5 from general audiences on Comscore/Screen Engine’s PostTrak — both well below recent hits from both franchises like “The Batman,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”

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Had “Shazam 2” seen stronger critical metrics, it’s likely that we would be talking about the sequel at least reaching pre-release projections and having a stronger chance to leg out in the coming weeks as an alternative to the R-Rated “John Wick 4.” It may have even led to a stronger rise in grosses from Friday to Saturday to signal spread of that stronger word-of-mouth despite not having any connection to a larger DC saga.

But without strong reception to draw in casual audiences or the hook of a compelling cinematic universe to attract hardcore fans, this DC sequel is proving to be one of the franchise’s lowest performing films.

“Quantumania” doesn’t have it quite as bad as its $106 million opening weekend showed that there’s still a lot of buy-in from hardcore Marvel fans, but the collapse since then shows that like “Shazam 2” and DC, Marvel is losing its “can’t-miss” status among general audiences if reviews say a new installment isn’t good.

That means that the near-term outlook for DC and Marvel is rather mixed. Both franchises have their ace in the 2023 lineup coming up next with Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” coming in May and DC’s “The Flash” in June.

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Insiders at both Disney and Warner say they are very optimistic about these films and it is easy to see why. “Guardians 3” is the finale for both James Gunn’s time in Marvel and for some of the most popular superheroes still in the MCU lineup. “The Flash,” meanwhile, enjoyed strong hardcore fan buzz from its Super Bowl trailer and has the return of Michael Keaton as Batman to build up plenty of pre-release buzz that “Black Adam” and “Shazam 2” never had.

But after that, films like “The Marvels,” “Blue Beetle” and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” don’t have the same level of built-in excitement that those early summer blockbusters have, and Warner and Disney will have to put the work in to get people who became attached to the cinematic universe formula to once again embrace superhero movies for their standalone appeal. Even “The Marvels” will have to do this despite its connections to past MCU films and streaming shows and its setup of future chapters.

And then, when those films release, the audience and critic reception are going to have to be better than what “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods” and “Quantumania” got. Otherwise, they will be doomed to a similar fate and a still rebuilding box office will be poorer for it.

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