Hellboy is a movie with problems. Those problems started with a slew of negative reviews making the film one of the most critically lambasted of the year. If the movie was hoping to be a success with fans, more than critics, it didn't have much luck there either, as it opened in third place and wasn't even the highest grossing new release of the weekend.
If Hellboy was looking to then fix things with some positive word of mouth, it's come up short there as well, as the film saw a serious box office drop of nearly 68% which almost saw it fall out of the top 10 during only its second weekend.
Hellboy finished its second weekend at the box office with just short of $4 million, a 67.8% drop compared to its opening weekend gross. That put the film behind Jordan Peele's Us, which finished its fifth weekend at the box office with $4.2 million.
A two-thirds drop in box office isn't an unreasonable drop, many films see their box office numbers fall by that much or more from their first to second weekend. However, Hellboy's problems are that it didn't start out in the best position. In addition, the movies that opened against Hellboy last weekend have shown much more remarkable staying power, making Hellboy look that much worse by comparison.
The comedy Little, which ended up beating Hellboy last weekend, only saw its fortunes fall by 45%, giving it the number five spot. Even more impressive, Laika's Missing Link which actually opened in ninth place last weekend, only saw it's box office fall by 26%, resulting in it actually gaining a slot and finishing its second weekend in eighth place
Part of the reason that these films saw such low box office drops, Captain Marvel jumped up two spots in the top 10 and actually made more money this weekend than it did the previous weekend, is that there was no major tentpole release to suck all the air, and money, out of the room. The box office was won by The Curse of La Llorona with only $26 million.
But then, a weekend like this, where movies that have been out for a while still had strong weekends shows just how badly things are going for Hellboy as it wasn't able to benefit from the same situation as every other movie at the multiplex. Nobody was even morbidly curious to see how the movie turned out when there was nothing else to see at the theater.
With Avengers: Endgame hitting this weekend we can pretty much write off Hellboy from a box office perspective. It will fall out of the 10 next weekend and will have to hope that it finds new life as a digital rental or perhaps on streaming services.
