Black Adam's Opening Weekend Box Office Beats Shazam, Falls Short of Recent Marvel Releases

Black Adam is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson's biggest opening weekend of his career as a Hollywood leading man. Having already become Johnson's biggest opening day ever, with $25 million on Friday, the film will earn $67 million in its first three days. That's better than than the opening weekend box office of Black Adam's traditional rival, Shazam, and better than fellow DC films The Suicide Squad, Birds of Prey, and Wonder Woman 1984 (though Squad and WW84 also released day-and-date on HBO Max), though it doesn't come close to The Batman's opening weekend. Compared to Marvel Studios' recent releases, Black Adam falls just shy of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' and Eternals' opening weekends.

Black Adam carries a B+ CinemaScore. There's a contrast between critics and audiences on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregation site. Only 41% of critics have reviewed Black Adam positively, amounting to a "rotten" aggregate score. However, 89% of audience members who chose to review the film on the site gave it a positive rating. Black Adam's critics' consensus on the site reads, "Black Adam may end up pointing the way to an exciting future for DC films, but as a standalone experience, it's a wildly uneven letdown."

ComicBook.com's Evan Valentine saw Black Adam as a first step in writing the DC Extended Universe's ship. In his 3.5-out-of-5 review of the film, he writes, "Is Black Adam the movie that will singlehandedly bring back the DC Cinematic Universe to stand toe to toe with what Marvel has built? No, but it's certainly laying the groundwork for this to be a possibility down the line. Black Adam is a fun, frenzied, and flawed film that answers the prayers of many while also giving viewers an action-packed thrill ride with plenty of charisma from its key players. (I would also be doing the movie a disservice if I didn't mention the amazing "pop" my screening received during the post-credit scene, which might just rival Captain America picking up Thor's hammer for the biggest reaction ever heard in a theater.) It's a roller coaster ride and, if you walk in with that mindset, you're going to have a good time."

Also at the box office this weekend, George Clooney and Julia Roberts' romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise opens, horror flicks Halloween Ends, Smile, and Terrifier 2 continue to take advantage of the desire for seasonal scares, while Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and The Woman King hang on their spots on the chart. The list of the top 10 films at the box office this weekend follows.