Aquamanhas officially passedWonder Womanat the box office. In less than a month, the DC universe has truly found its savior. Jason Momoa had won the hearts of fans as Arthur Curry, aka the King of Atlantis. But the character hadn’t truly had the chance to shine in a proper way until now. And audiences are really taking to it, asAquamancontinues to rake in the cash all over the world.
With the New Year’s Day box office factored in,Aquamanhas now grossed $216.3 million domestically and $606.5 million overseas, bringing its worldwide total of $822.9 million. That puts it just ahead ofWonder Woman, which managed to bring in $821.8 million last year. However, director Patty Jenkins’Wonder Womanmade quite a bit more domestically, as the movie grossed $412.6 million here in the states. In fact,Aquamanis still the lowest grossing movie in the current DC franchise domestically, still sitting behindJustice League($229 million). That important distinction aside,Aquamanis on its way to becoming one of the biggest DC movies of all time.
Within the current run of DC movies,Aquamanstill needs to overtakeBatman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which grossed $873.6 million at the worldwidebox officein 2016. But at the rate things are going, it should overtake that total in virtually no time at all. Especially considering that there isn’t any truly major new competition coming down the pipeline untilGlassopens on January 18. That givesAquamana couple more weeks to take in more at the box office domestically before it will have to surrender the box office crown.
To say the least, this is exactly what Warner Bros. needed from DC right now following thelukewarm reception to Justice League. The movie failed to meet expectations at the box office and, thanks to very costly reshoots, wound up losing the studio a good deal of money. The failure resulted in the studio rethinking their strategy with DC Films moving forward andAquamanwound up being the first movie to come out with this new strategy in place. While that did place a lot of pressure on the movie to deliver, it looks like Arthur Curry had no problem meeting that challenge.
Wonder Woman, critically speaking, is still theQueen of the DC universe, as the movie holds a 93 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to the 64 percent held byAquaman. Still, audiences are taking to it and critics didn’t hate it. That’s important moving forward. In all likelihood,Aquamanwill be the first DC movie sinceThe Dark Knight Risesto cross the $1 billion mark globally, which is truly impressive considering that Batman is, by every measure, a much more popular character. But things are changing and it’s clear there is a new king in town. These numbers were provided by Forbes.
