Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opened at the box office for the long Christmas weekend where it’s not expected to due as well as the 2018 movie by a longshot.
The Thursday previews brought in $4.5 million.
The flick is expected to bring in around $40 million over the four-day Christmas holiday weekend. Back in 2018, the first movie did over $100 million at the Christmas four-day box office.
Aquaman 2’s $4.5 million Thursday is better than Blue Beetle‘s $3.3 Million and Shazam: Fury of the Gods‘ $3.4 million.
It’s not better than The Flash‘s $9.7 million or Black Adam‘s $7.6 million Thursdays. It’s also not better than The Marvels‘ $6.6 million.
All the aforementioned films are considered big bombs at the box office.
Friday/Saturday update: Friday box office is reported to be $13.7M, which includes the Thursday previews (first Aquaman did more than double at over $27.7M). Saturday is looking like $10M (first one did $21.3M). The three-day weekend opening is now estimated to be $30M, and around $43M for the 4-day Christmas weekend holiday.
Sunday update: Estimates are now lower. The 3-day is estimated around $27.6M with the 4-day between $38M-$39M. Wonka has definitely made an impact as it has an estimated $18M 3-day and $26M 4-day.
Tuesday update: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opened to a $38.3 million 4-day with a $27.7 million 3-day, and a $80.2 million foreign gross, for a current $118.5 million worldwide gross.
Opening weekend?
Regarding the Aquaman 2 box office opening weekend, yep, WB’s Wonka looks to be putting a big dent in things as Wonka almost opened higher on Thursday with $4.2 million. I’ve also heard Wonka is performing better overseas than Aquaman 2 in some locations. Not good.
Wonka opened low but appears to be having legs so as there isn’t much to go to the theaters to watch, maybe Wonka will be this year’s Avatar: The Way of the Water. No, I’m not expecting Wonka to hit a billion, but when Avatar 2 was released in 2022, King James had no competition, and the film magically brought in over $2 billion.
Aquaman 2 is also getting hammered by Rotten Tomatoes with a 36% score. The Audience Score is now available and currently is at 77%, which is actually better than the first film’s 72%.
Deadline also adds general audiences gave Aquaman 2 only 3 stars on Thursday night, which means the hardcore DCEU fans didn’t like the movie. However, parents gave it 5 stars, and kids under 12 gave it 4 stars, which from the tone of the flick makes sense. Again, there isn’t much to see this year for Christmas, so if you are looking for a fun family movie, Aquaman and the Last Kingdom is it.
As I went over in my review, I did like Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom a lot. Don’t go in expecting The Dark Knight and you’ll be fine. It’s a fun superhero film buddy comedy. If you are a fan of Jason Momoa, you should like the flick a lot.
