Let’s celebrate the heydays of this autumn’s box office where we can, the season greatly hampered by a lack of tentpole product.
But thanks to New Line’s Dwayne Johnson DC movie, Black Adam, that’s changing.
In the wake of the pic posting the best opening of the actor’s solo star career at $67M domestic, ($140M WW), Black Adam notched the best Monday and weekday (outside Friday) to date this fall with $4.5M ahead of Paramount’s Smile which made $2.98M on Tuesday, Oct. 4. The 4-day total for the Jaume Collet-Serra directed movie stands at $71.5M.
Black Adam‘s Monday beats that of last pandemic October’s Halloween Kills ($2.7M) and Dune ($1.75M) both of which were available theatrical day-and-date on respective studio streaming services Peacock and HBO Max as well as the first Monday of Halloween Ends ($1.75M) which was in a similar distribution situation.
However, among Johnson’s first Mondays at the domestic box office, Black Adam is pretty powerful besting Central Intelligence ($4M), Jumanji: Next Level ($3.58M), Jungle Cruise ($3.7M), Skyscraper ($2.56M) and Rampage ($2.5M). The DC Seven Bucks anti-hero is pacing behind Johnson’s first Mondays for Hobbs and Shaw ($5.87M) and San Andreas ($4.8M). Even though Black Adam has a lighter Monday than Hobbs and Shaw, it’s ahead of that Fast and Furious spinoff in its 4-day total by 8%, that pic’s comparative running total at the same point in time being $65.9M.
Even though Black Adam encounters wide release competition this weekend from Lionsgate’s Prey for the Devil, the movie is expected to dominate in its second weekend with $27M-$30M, -55% to 60%.