Aquaman is the overall king of the DCEU, but not at the domestic box office. There's now just one colleague left to conquer ... and she may be out of his league.
Yep, Aquaman is still in theaters and it's still breaking records. There was already a lot of back-patting when Aquaman had a strong opening overseas. There was more applause when it became the first DCEU movie to break $1 billion dollars. There was still more cheering -- along with some surprise -- when it managed to pass The Dark Knight Rises as the highest-grossing DC Comics movie ever.
But it wasn't done!
James Wan's movie just passed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice at the domestic box office.
Aquaman has made $1,130,771,102 overall at this point, and that's from $799,400,000 at the foreign box office and $331,371,102 at the domestic box office. Batman v Superman: BvS made $873,634,919, with $543,274,725 from the foreign box office and $330,360,194 at the domestic box office.
So you can see that Aquaman just now passed BvS at the domestic (U.S./Canada) box office, which is still the biggest market in the world. (China is inching closer at No. 2.)
Wonder Woman will be tough for Aquaman to beat on the domestic side. That film has a lower overall gross of $821,847,012, but a full $412,563,408 of that came from the domestic box office. That's the most of any DCEU film, and even more than its foreign gross of $409,283,604.
If we're just talking domestic box office, here are the current numbers via Box Office Mojo, not adjusted for inflation:
Wonder Woman: $412,563,408Aquaman: $331,371,102Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: $330,360,194Suicide Squad: $325,100,054Man of Steel: $291,045,518Justice League: $229,024,295
So for Aquaman to pass Wonder Woman at the domestic box office, it has to make more than $81 million dollars from here. Is it possible?
Aquaman opened in theaters in late December, but here were are in mid-February and this past weekend it played in 1,264 theaters and made $1,885,000 at the domestic box office, placing #12 on the February 15-17, 2019 chart. That's pretty impressive. And it's not even counting money from anywhere it's still playing overseas.
It's hard to gauge what's really possible for Aquaman from here, since the film has been underestimated this whole time. Ordinarily I'd say no, it's not likely to pass Wonder Woman's U.S. total, but ... maybe.
Warner Bros. is apparently moving forward with a sequel to Aquaman, with or possibly without director James Wan. There's also talk of a spinoff following The Trench. The other day, Aquaman himself, Jason Momoa, got crazy excited about something DC-related, and went screaming down the DC office hallways. Is he excited for the sequel? Maybe he saw his paycheck for the next movie. Either way, we'll stay on top of the box office numbers, and all future details on DCEU movies. For now, keep up with what's headed to theaters this year with our 2019 movie release calendar.
