Box office: “Wonka” Crosses $25O million worldwide, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” opens to $8O million abroad
At the foreign box office, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” debuted to a $80 million opening, which isn’t all that impressive when you realize that those ticket sales are comparable to later big-budget superhero failures like “The Flash,” “The Marvels,” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”
Directed by James Wan and starring Jason Momoa as the ruler of Atlantis, the comic book sequel has made a meager $40 million in North America out of its $120 million global debut. The $205 million Warner Bros. and DC movie looks to be the next underwhelming DC tentpole after a run of unsuccessful releases this year, including “The Flash,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” and “Blue Beetle.” In addition to receiving negative reviews and receiving just average audience ratings, “Aquaman 2” is having trouble since the DC Extended Universe has positioned it as a lame duck. This is the last chapter before the vast superhero universe is reset by DC’s new leaders, James Gunn and Peter Safran—probably without Momoa as the ruler of the undersea country.
The first movie, “Aquaman,” came out in 2018 during a period when box office success for comic book movies seemed unachievable. With $816 million in international sales and $1.14 billion in global sales, it became an enormous commercial success. With an opening weekend of $93 million and a run-time of $292 million, the original was especially successful in China. However, since the pandemic, Hollywood productions have not been successful in China, and “The Lost Kingdom” was no exception. The follow-up only made $30 million over the course of the weekend from 28,140 screens, hardly near the success of the first film. Other major international markets outside of the Middle Kingdom included France ($3.2 million), Mexico ($5, million), Indonesia ($3.6 million), and the United Kingdom ($3).