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Easter box office: The Curse of La Llorona haunts top spot with $26.5M in slow weekend
The Curse of La Llorona may be scary, but the slow nature of this Easter weekend box office is even scarier, as it's the worst one in over 10 years.
The latest entry in Warner Bros. and James Wan's shared Conjuring Universe, La Llorona takes the domestic top spot in its opening weekend with a meager $26.5 million. For comparison, the last installment in the franchise, The Nun, did over $53 million of ticket sales in North America during its debut weekend last September.
Directed by Michael Chaves (helmer of the upcoming Conjuring 3), the film stars Linda Cardellini (Green Book) as a single mother trying to protect her two children from a malicious spirit in the early '70s. The titular ghost, La Llorona, is a terrifying staple of Latin American folklore, which speaks of a mother who drowned her two kids and then roams the Earth looking for souls to claim after she was denied entry into Heaven.
The film's poor performance could have something with the movie's slightly poor reviews from SXSW last month, which liked the cast and overall mood, but criticized the glaring cliches that added nothing new to the horror genre.
The Curse of La Llorona co-stars Raymond Cruz, Patricia Velásquez, Sean Patrick Thomas, Tony Amendola, and Irene King.
Warner Bros. also nabbed the No. 2 spot this weekend with holdover Shazam! Adding another $17.3 million to its domestic tally, the light-hearted superhero flick's North American haul currently stands at $121.3 million. The movie's promising performance with critics and at the box office prompted the studio to almost immediately greenlight a sequel with original screenwriter Henry Gayden returning.
Captain Marvel, which has already shattered $1 billion internationally, surpassed $400 million domestically with an extra $9.4 million, easily nabbing the fourth spot.
Little (like Shazam!, it's a twist on the Big formula) took No. 5 for Universal with another $8.3 in its second weekend. Elsewhere, Disney's Penguins documentary film, narrated by Ed Helms, waddled its way toward $2.4 million in honor of Earth Day tomorrow.
Lionsgate's Hellboy reboot, now in its second weekend, didn't even place, a sure sign that the David Harbour-fronted revival is (sadly) a major box office bomb. Last weekend, the R-rated superhero feature made just $12 million.
While things might be slow this weekend, they'll begin to heat up very quickly when Avengers: Endgame hits theaters everywhere this coming Thursday night/Friday.
(via The Hollywood Reporter & Box Office Mojo)
