‘Aquaman And The Lost Kingdom’ Reportedly On Track For Worse Box Office Opening Than ‘The Marvels’, DC Sequel Predicted To Pull In Just $40M Domestic Across Christmas Weekend
Spencer Baculi
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Pack it up, Mr. Curry – this round belongs to Black Manta.
It looks like the end of the Snydervese will come with not a bang, but an ocean-muted whisper, as according to a new report, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is on track for a very, very unhappy Christmas.
Per a December 19th analysis of the upcoming holiday’s box office prospects provided by Deadline’s Anthonty D’Alessandro and Nancy Tataglione, the final chapter in DC’s first attempt at a cinematic universe is currently looking at a domestic box office of just $40 Million across the entirety of its debut, four-day weekend.
And unfortunately for the Aquaman who would be king, his financial outlook barely looks better overseas.
Launching in 73 markets – including the highly-coveted China – the James Wan-directed sequel is only set to take in somewhere between $75M – $80M, with a possible peak of just $110M through Sunday.
Assuming these figures end up accurately representing Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom‘s opening box office, they would represent an abysmal performance decline between the sequel and its predecessor.
Releasing on December 21st, per numbers provided by the aptly named box office analysis outlet The-Numbers, the first Aquaman ended its first four-days in theaters – the same amount of time covered in D’Alessandro and Tataglione’s analysis – with a nearly triple-sized take of $105M.
Likewise, the film ended its international opening weekend – which only covered a standard three-day period – with roughly $172M – an almost 50% box office increase over even the most generous of Lost Kingdom‘s predictions.
To this end, according to a previous report from Variety, the deep sea sequel reportedly cost a whopping $215M to produce.
Taking into account the standard rule of thumb that, thanks to production and subsequent marketing costs, a given film must make at least double its budget to break even, this means that Lost Kingdom needs to end its theatrical run with, at the absolute minimum, a final box office of $500M.
Adding even further insult to injury, should these numbers hold, they would leave Lost Kingdom with a worse opening weekend box office than even Marvel’s The Marvels, which ended the period with a total gross of $47M domestically and $63.3M international.
Unfortunately for the King of the Seven Seas, there are two very distinct reasons why this goal may, realistically, be unobtainable.
The first is, of course, current DC Studios co-head James Gunn’s decision to announce his reboot of DC’s cinematic roadmap over a year before the aquatic hero returned for his second adventure, as it essentially signaled to audiences that neither it nor any of the other three then-yet-to-be-released Snyderverse outings – Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle – would have any relevance to the franchise’s future.
In light of this reveal – as well as Gunn’s subsequent declaration that “nothing is canon” in his DC continuity “until [the animated] Creature Commandos, thus smothering any hopes of Lost Kingdom being folded into his plans – it comes as no surprise that audiences have found themselves disinterested in the film’s release, as outside of one’s personal fandom for the character or a particular actor, there’s no reason for them to rush out and take in its interconnected story elements.
The second, as many readers may have already yelled at their screens, is Amber Heard.
Thanks to the numerous pieces of evidence to her genuinely toxic and abusive personality unveiled to the public during the course of the now infamous defamation lawsuit brought against her by ex-husband Johnny Depp, the actress has now become a persona non-grata not just among Hollywood, but general audiences as well.
As such, the mere presence of the actress as Mera – no matter how short her appearance may reportedly be – is more than enough reason for a good number of viewers to happily avoid giving the film their money.
For better or worse, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will emerge from the seas on December 20th.
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