Once the laughing stock of superheroes, Aquaman is having the last laugh as his movie has dominated the holiday season, reigning at #1 over the weekend before Christmas, on Christmas day itself, and over the New Years weekend. It has made over $200 million in the US and well over half-a-billion worldwide.
Ringing in at $822.9 million worldwide, ‘Aquaman’ is now the second-best performing of all the DC movies, edging past ‘Wonder Woman’s $821.8 million. The only film left to conquer is ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’, which made $873.6 million during its time in theaters, and it is predicted that ‘Aquaman’ will swim past that by the end of this week.
A lot of ‘Aquaman”s success is due to the extremely positive reaction it received in China, where it opened earlier than in the US and has since had its theatrical run extended– a rarity for a western movie. In that nation, ‘Aquaman’ is the second best performing superhero movie overall, falling only behind ‘Avengers: Infinity War’. In the US, ‘Aquaman’ is tracking to out-perform Marvel’s ‘Doctor Strange’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’.
It should be noted that in terms of domestic ticket sales, ‘Aquaman’ is lagging behind ‘Wonder Woman’, which made $330 million during its theatrical run. But once again, ‘Aquaman’ is only two weeks into its release. Keep in mind, ‘Wonder Woman’ was not as successful in foreign markets as it was here in the US. In some cultures, women are still not considered equal to men. Hell, in some places, women are still considered property! So DC’s empowered female champion wasn’t welcome all over the globe.
‘Wonder Woman’ does remain DC’s best-reviewed film, with a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite its financial success, ‘Aquaman’ is far from a perfect film, and sits at a better-than-average 64%.
After ‘Wonder Woman”s success, other studios have been quick to put other movies with female heroes into development, like 2018’s dud ‘Tomb Raider’ and the in-pre-production ‘Red Sonja’. Now that ‘Aquaman’ is a certified smash, will other studios start making other underwater movies? Will Marvel finally straighten out the rights to ‘Namor, the Sub-Mariner’?
Have you seen ‘Aquaman’ yet? Are you surprised by its success? Or is it deserved?
Source: Entertainment Weekly
