Can the DC Extended Universe’s final film hit the $400 million mark globally?
The final film in the now-defunct DC Extended Universe, a series of big-budget superhero movies that will surely be studied for various reasons in the years to come, isn’t performing too shabbily at the global box office. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was all but written off by audiences and Warner Bros., which gave it a half-hearted marketing push following back-to-back debacles and major behind-the-scenes change-ups.
Despite mixed reviews and the well-publicized issues around the film’s production and release, Aquaman 2 has stayed above the surface for over three weeks now. The movie grossed an estimated $5.2 million at the domestic box office this weekend, slipping out of the top five for the first time since its release. A strong opening in Japan pushed its overseas numbers to over $265 million, which puts the movie’s cumulative worldwide gross at $373.7 million. A $400 million lifetime haul is totally on the cards, which wouldn’t look too bad when compared to the film’s reported production budget of $200 million.
The general rule-of-thumb states that movies this size should ideally gross twice their production budgets theatrically to break even, and Aquaman 2 is on track to becoming the first DCEU movie since 2022’s Black Adam to come close to doing so. Starring Dwayne Johnson, Black Adam perhaps encapsulates everything that went wrong with the DCEU in its final years. The movie was supposed to change the “hierarchy of power” within the franchise, but ended up underperforming at the box office, forcing the studio to scuttle all plans to continue the series with Johnson at the center.
Overseas Markets Came to ‘Aquaman 2’s Aid
Recent Superhero Bombs
Global Box Office
The Marvels
$205 million
The Flash
$270 million
Blue Beetle
$128 million
Shazam! Fury of the Gods
$132 million
Black Adam
$393 million
Black Adam grossed just over $390 million globally, but three subsequent DCEU releases all bombed catastrophically. Shazam! Fury of the Gods made a little more than $130 million globally, Blue Beetle grossed under $130 million, and The Flash generated $270 million worldwide. This weekend, Aquaman 2 also overtook The Flash’s $108 million lifetime domestic haul, if that’s any consolation for its otherwise soft stateside performance. By comparison, 2018’s first Aquaman movie, also directed by James Wan and starring Jason Momoa, swam all the way to a $335 domestic and a $1.1 billion global haul, emerging as the biggest DC movie of all time.
The franchise is now being rebooted under the stewardship of co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran. The newly announced DC Universe will begin in 2025 with Gunn’s Superman: Legacy, starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, and Nicholas Hoult. Also starring Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Aquaman 2 is currently playing in theaters. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
