There's a lot of buzz surrounding DC's next big screen venture Aquaman and that looks as if it is translating into ticket sales. While box office won't be official until the weekend after release, Aquaman is already outpacing one of its predecessors at the box office. According to Fandango, early ticket sales for Aquaman are beating the DC Universe's last solo hero outing Wonder Woman.
In the report from Fandango, it's also mentioned that Paramount's Transformers spinoff Bumblebee is also outpacing Transformers: The Last Knight at the same point in the ticket sales cycle, which is good news given the early estimates for that flick. Mary Poppins Returns is also outpacing Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which came out around the same time last year and went on to be a huge box office win for the studio, pulling in $404 million domestically and over $962 million worldwide.
That latter comparison is less apt, as Mary Poppins Returns is a Disney movie and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle comes from Sony; still, both are sequels to well-liked properties.
What it all seems to be translating to is that December could be a great month at the movies. Previously, we learned that Aquaman could make as much as $100 million during opening weekend. For comparison's sake, Wonder Woman made $103 million domestically during opening weekend, and now Aquaman is outpacing that flick.
It also is probably worth noting that Wonder Woman went on to make $412+ million domestically and worldwide made over $821 million. Aquaman has already been released in other places in the world and has grossed $266.4 million--and that's just so far.
Of course, Fandango is only a snapshot of overall tickets sales for movies, but Fandango accounts for a decent percent of those ticket sales. For example, we previously learned the online outlet accounted for 30% of the opening weekend sales for fellow superhero movie Black Panther earlier this year. That happened after Black Panther also had a good showing in pre-sales.
So, good advance ticket sales news should prove to be good news for Aquaman.
In fact, 2018 has been a good year for ticket sales. Results previously indicated movies have brought in $11 billion so far this year, and with some big movies over the next couple of weeks, there is the potential for the movie business to rake in $12 billion domestically. Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse is already contributing to that total with a big opening weekend this past weekend, kicking off with over $35 million domestically in weekend totals.
Mary Poppins Returns will start raking in the dough this week, while Aquaman and Bumblebee will follow on Friday, December 21. You can take a look at all of the flicks still prepping for a 2018 release with CinemaBlend's full schedule.
