The premiere of ‘ Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom ‘ has not only led to an avalanche of bad reviews and the media once again putting on the table the issue of the exhaustion of superhero movies, but it is also not going to provide economic relief to Warner that he would be a great fit for the company. Its box office on a weekend as juicy as Christmas has fallen below expectations.
With its 40 million dollars in collection in the United States (27.7 if we strictly count only the weekend, without taking into account the holidays), this sequel to ‘ Aquaman ‘ is going to have a very difficult time exceeding its hefty budget of 205 million dollars. millions of dollars. In this first weekend, Aquaman has faced the musical reboot of ‘The Color Purple’ (also from Warner), the automotive drama ‘Ferrari’ and the return to the director’s chair of George Clooney, ‘The Boys in the Boat ‘.
‘Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’ thus joins the long string of box office disappointments of films based on DC heroes, which have not achieved a success of the caliber of Marvel’s for a long time (where they also have their own problems ): ‘ The Flash‘ debuted with 55 million, ‘Shazam! The Fury of the Gods ‘ with 30 and ‘Blue Beetle’, with 25. It is obvious why Warner wants to reactivate its shared superhero universe as soon as possible under the supervision of James Gunn and Peter Safran.
There is still hope
Warner’s hope with this sequel to ‘Aquaman’ could be, however, in letting it gain some momentum in the hope that it will imitate the trajectory of its predecessor. That one, in 2018, started with 67 million dollars, which did not predict the phenomenon that the underwater adventure starring Jason Momoa would become, which ended up grossing 1.15 billion dollars worldwide, becoming the most successful DC film of all time. the story, above any production of Batman or Superman.
It is unlikely that the phenomenon will be repeated, however , because the international market is no longer powerful enough to triple (or more) the United States box office. China is no longer the box office which he is only able to weather, precisely, when he opts for films like ‘The Batman ‘ or ‘ Joker ‘, outside the shared DC universe.
These lackluster results, however, do not imply a disastrous end to the year for Warner. Although no official data has yet been given about ‘The Color Purple’ (but there are good forecasts), its other important release for these holidays, ‘Wonka’, has performed wonderfully , placing itself at number 2 of the most watched in the United States this year. weekend, after a start of 150 million dollars in the global market in its first weekend.
That is to say, although DC superheroes are not at their best, Warner is still a force to be taken into account. In fact, facing the general public, perhaps, it is not going through an identity crisis as strong as that of Disney, which not only has problems with Marvel and ‘Star Wars’, but also has to rethink its animated faction after the disaster of ‘ Wish ‘.