AQUAMAN LEADS BOX OFFICE WORLD WIDE WITH $950M
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DC Films and Warner Bros.’ Aquaman took its first real hit yesterday, which is understandable since it was the first weekday that wasn’t part of a holiday break.
The James Wan-directed underwater adventure earned $2.605 million (-70% from Sunday and -74% from last Monday) to bring its domestic total up to $262.6m. That puts it just above the raw domestic grosses of The Incredibles ($261m in 2004 sans 3-D) and The Amazing Spider-Man ($262m in 2012).
The movie is now the 26th-biggest superhero movie in unadjusted-for-inflation domestic earnings (counting The Matrix Reloaded’s $281m gross back in 2003).
Among comic book adaptations (superhero or otherwise), it is the 24th-biggest in North America just ahead of Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($259 million in 2014) and Amazing Spider-Man ($262m in 2012) but well behind Man of Steel $291m in 2013). Inflation paints a different picture, but we can save that conversation for when we get a better idea of its final domestic gross. That Monday drop may be steep, but it’s actually still smaller than National Treasure: Book of Secrets (-73% from Sunday and -85% from its previous Monday) back in 2008.
I’ve been using the Nic Cage sequel as a measuring stick since it opened on the same day as Aquaman in 2007 and ended up with 4.91x its $44.7 million debut weekend. That seemed like an impossible multiplier for a big-scale comic book superhero movie that opened with $72.5m. Yet, here we are on day 18, and the Jason Momoa/Amber Heard flick has already earned a 3.62x weekend-to-final multiplier, making it already leggier than I Am Legend ($256m/$77m), all three Hobbit prequels (Battle of the Five Armies opened on a Wednesday) and the last two December Star Wars movies.
Unless it crashes hard from here on out, it’ll end up leggier than Tron: Legacy ($171 million/$44m in 2010) and even some of the big “opened on a Wednesday” Christmas blockbusters (Return of the King, King Kong, etc.). We’re still looking at a $300m+ domestic cume, perhaps as early as Martin Luther King Day, and a $311m+ domestic finish makes it the leggiest comic book superhero movie since Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ($135m/$25m in 1990) and the leggiest straight-up “opened on a Friday” superhero movie since Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves ($165m/$25m in 1991).
That makes it leggier than the likes of Batman Begins ($206m/$48m Fri-Sun) and Amazing Spider-Man ($262m/$64m Fri-Sun). Point being, it may be playing like a Hobbit prequel on steroids, but it’s legging it out like a mid-level Christmas biggie despite being the big man on campus. Right or wrong, people like this movie, be it because they like comic book superhero movies and/or because they like big-budget fantasy adventure epics set in impossibly fantastical worlds (Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Black Panther, etc.), and are continuing to flock to theatres to see it.
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