The king has arrived! Aquaman officially passed the $1 billion mark as of today, becoming the 37th movie to do so in all of cinema. That's quite the accomplishment, and Warner Bros. and James Wan were quick to celebrate the moment. Aquaman director James Wan even sent his own thank yous to the cast, crew, and fans:
James Wan continued with more thanks:
The grateful director didn't stop there. In fact, he had one more bit of love and thanks to share:
He's not the only one who is pumped Aquaman hit the $1 billion mark worldwide. The official Aquaman Twitter account shared a video commemorating the accomplishment, which you can check out below.
Aquaman may have been the only DC film released this year, but it more than made up for the lack of numbers. The film opened at No. 1 with $67.8 million domestically, and it held that spot for three weeks in a row. Despite the fact that it had to relinquish that top spot this weekend to The Upside, Aquaman still earned a combined $45 million worldwide, so Warner Bros. probably isn't too broken up about it.
That weekend total helped push Aquaman to $1.02 billion worldwide and the film celebrated its entrance into the billion-dollar superhero club with a post on Twitter. The video also takes time to thanks the fans who helped propel Aquaman to these impressive heights.
And what heights it achieved! Aquaman earned a ton of notable achievements this weekend. For starters, it's the tenth superhero movie to gross $1 billion. It's also the first DCEU film to reach the benchmark, and the third movie based on a DC comics character (the other two being The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises).
On top of that, Aquaman is the first movie in four and half years that isn't a Walt Disney or Universal release to cross the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. Aquaman is additionally the second-biggest non-sequel solo superhero film behind only Black Panther ($1.4 billion).
Director James Wan also gets a few professional achievements for Aquaman's success. Wan is now one of only two directors to have two films from different franchise gross $1 billion. Wan previously directed 2015's Furious 7, which grossed $1.5 billion. The other director is James Cameron for Titanic and Avatar.
Additionally, James Wan is now the eighth director to have two films cross $1 billion. The others include Christopher Nolan, Michael Bay, Joss Whedon, James Cameron, Pierre Coffin, Peter Jackson, and the Russo brothers (counted as one entity).
All of this is to say, good job, Aquaman. I never expected the movie to do this well, and I thought it was pretty weird to not have this movie in the summer. With no Star Wars movie, December was clearly the perfect spot and it gave Aquaman plenty of room to run wild.
Judging by the box office, I'm guessing that you've already seen this movie, but Aquaman is still playing in theaters if you haven't caught it yet. For everything else, DC has coming up, here is our DC movie release guide.
