‘Aquaman 2’ Struggles Ashore With $40 Million Christmas Box Office Opening
Warner Bros./DC’s “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is leading the box office with a $40 million 4-day box office opening. But with middling audience reception, the final installment of the DC Extended Universe isn’t showing as much promise as other films farther down the charts.
“Aquaman 2” is already behind its $1 billion-plus 2018 predecessor, which earned a 3-day opening of $67.8 million, as well as the $47 million 3-day opening of the Marvel Studios bomb “The Marvels.”
On top of that, while the first “Aquaman” earned an A- on CinemaScore, the sequel earned a B, the same grade as Warner Bros.’ summer DC flop “The Flash.” Like that film, “Aquaman” carries a $200 million-plus budget, the highest of any new release this holiday season.
It’s an ignominious end to the once successful DCEU, as Warner Bros. released three other films in the series this year — “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” “The Flash” and “Blue Beetle” — that were ignored by all but the most hardcore of superhero movie lovers and tanked at the box office. A likely factor may have been audiences’ awareness that the entire DC cinematic canon is being rebooted under new creative head James Gunn, whom Warner Bros. is trusting to revive one of their most lucrative IP with “Superman: Legacy” in summer 2025.
Warner Bros. is getting better news from its family musical “Wonka,” which is estimated to earn $26 million this extended weekend. Through Christmas Day, the prequel to “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” is estimated to have a domestic cume of $83.5 million after showing solid midweek numbers and strong audience reception.
In third is Illumination/Universal’s “Migration,” which is earning a 4-day opening weekend of $17 million from 3,761 theaters. It’s a soft start for Illumination’s first original film since “Sing” in 2016, but family audiences are embracing it with an A on CinemaScore and an 85% Rotten Tomatoes score.
Universal is banking on that strong audience reception allowing “Migration” to leg out over the coming weeks similar to DreamWorks’ “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” or Pixar’s “Elemental” earlier this year. “Elemental” grossed $154 million at the domestic box office, becoming the highest grossing original animated film this year.
Sony/Columbia’s romantic comedy “Anyone But You” is in fourth with a 4-day opening of $9 million against a $25 million budget. The Sydney Sweeney/Glen Powell film aims to find its own lane with female moviegoers this holiday season, as it has received an A- on CinemaScore, 4/5 on PostTrak and an 85% RT audience score.
A24’s “The Iron Claw” completes the top 5 with a $7.5 million opening. Sporting a $16 million budget, the tragic wrestling biopic is one of the rare A24 films to open with a wide release, and that move has paid off as the film has received an A- on CinemaScore, the highest ever grade received for a film by the indie distributor.
Overall, the four-day holiday weekend is expected to bring around $142.5 million to the domestic box office, roughly the same as last year. But while last year saw “Avatar: The Way of Water” get off to a long, prosperous theatrical run, “Aquaman 2” isn’t expected to do the same, which will likely lead to weaker overall numbers in the final week of the year even with Christmas Day releases like Warner Bros.’ “The Color Purple” on the way.
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