Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom Belly-Flops At The Box Office With $40 Million Debut
Update 12/30/2023: Though initial projections pointed to a $43 million four-day weekend for "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," the film ultimately finished short of the mark. Per Variety, it grossed $28.1 million over the three-day weekend, and just $40 million over the full four-day Christmas weekend. The headline has been updated to reflect this. Original article follows.
DC's last chance to score a win at the 2023 box office, with James Wan's water-dwelling sequel "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," is looking like a fourth and final bust. The original film, also directed by Wan and released in 2018, grossed more than $1.1 billion worldwide and is still the third-highest grossing movie in Warner Bros. Pictures' history. But with early numbers in, "The Lost Kingdom" looks set to repeat the pattern of "Captain Marvel" and its recent sequel "The Marvels" with a mega-drop in ticket sales.
Per Deadline, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" grossed just $13.7 million on Friday (including Thursday previews), which puts it on track to gross just $30 million Friday-to-Sunday, and $43 million over the four-day Christmas weekend. The three-day estimate puts it on par with "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" and only slightly ahead of the opening weekend for "Blue Beetle," which featured a relatively obscure DC superhero who had never been seen on the big screen before. Thanks to its relatively conservative budget, "Blue Beetle" will probably end up being the most successful DC movie of the year (i.e the movie that loses the least money). "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" reportedly had a budget of $205 million.
The first "Aquaman" movie also released over the Christmas holidays, preceded by limited preview screenings the previous weekend. It grossed $67.8 million over the three-day opening weekend, and $100.7 million over the full four-day holiday, so "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" is tracking to make less than half of what its predecessor did in this initial frame. Beyond North America, the box office market to watch is China, where "Aquaman" once grossed a staggering $291.8 million — more than a quarter of its worldwide total. However, Deadline reported earlier this week that "The Lost Kingdom" was tracking for a $25-30 million debut in China, less than a third of the original movie's $93 million opening.
A clean slate?
In defense of "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom," the first film had the full weight of Warner Bros. Pictures' enthusiasm behind it. Team-up movie "Justice League" had flopped at the box office the previous year, but solo DC movie "Wonder Woman" had been a huge box office hit, offering hope that individual members of the Justice League could find their own breakout success. In a retrospective on the DC Extended Universe's legacy, The Hollywood Reporter's Borys Kit notes that the premiere for the first "Aquaman" movie was a "raucous" affair, with a star-studded blue carpet, lead actor Jason Momoa performing a Māori haka, and an afterparty at the Roosevelt Hotel. All "The Lost Kingdom" got was "a pre-screening reception for influencers at high-end shopping mall The Grove."
This scaled-back marketing budget reflects not only the movie's box office projections, but also Warner Bros.' general attitude towards "The Lost Kingdom" and other leftovers from the Zack Snyder-led vision for the DC Extended Universe. The studio had already spent a lot of money making these movies, so they had to be released (or shelved for tax purposes), but throwing more money after them was likely seen as a waste since DC Studios already has a new vision in place. Courtesy of co-bosses James Gunn and Peter Safran, there's a fresh slate of movies planned for a soft reboot that's been dubbed the DC Universe. "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" was the final release from the original DCEU slate, and marks the end of that era.
Whether or not this change will register with general audiences is another matter. It's not just DC movies that have been struggling; the once-bulletproof Marvel Cinematic Universe has released more flops than hits this year. If superhero fatigue has truly set in, it's unlikely that a rebrand and new actors in the super-suits will turn things around.