Culture news Jason Momoa can breathe: Aquaman 2 has finally surpassed the biggest DC Comics flops but it will have taken time
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has been in theaters for four weeks and the time has come for a new financial assessment: so, flop or not flop? Ultimately, James Wan’s film is not as big a commercial flop as expected…
Aquaman, king of the seas and the box office?
The least we can say is that the DC Universe has experienced a lot of setbacks, enough to push Warner Bros and DC Comics to completely review their copy: it will be written by Peter Safran and James Gunn, who will begin a new vision of the extended universe in 2025 with Superman Legacy. But until then, in the DCU started by Zack Snyder, one film in particular has become a billionaire: Aquaman, the first of its name.
Released in 2019, Jason Momoa’s journey reached billion dollars at the box office four weeks after its broadcast, to end its run at 1.152 billion greenbacks. To put it simply, it is quite simply the DC Comics film that grossed the most money at the box office, even ahead of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.
However, no one predicted such success for its sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, facing a seriously delayed release and a decline in public excitement for superheroes. Some specialists even claimed that it would be an industrial disaster… but the situation is not as acidic as imagined.
Shipwreck avoided
So certainly, during its first days of operation, this Aquaman 2 stood out as one of the worst starts in the history of DC Studios in the USA. However, After four weeks of operation, it came close to $400 million at the box office last weekend. It’s certainly much less than its predecessor (it crossed the billion mark at the same period), but the film is on track to be in the green.
According to Variety, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom reportedly cost $215 million (without marketing costs and those linked to reshoot phases). In this way, the feature film would be on the verge of reaching its break-even point. So of course, the production will not be rolling in gold with this new adventure of the Atlantean, but it can in any case consider itself lucky not to have had to suffer another bitter failure.
For example, Black Adam (released at the end of 2022) only made 393 million at the box office and The Flash, released in theaters in 2023, only brought in 260 million. And again, it’s nothing compared to previous DC films like Shazam! and the Rage of the Gods, dating from 2023, with its 134 million dollars or even Blue Beetle, also from 2023, and its 130.7 million. Yes still.
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