Aquaman earned another $10.1 million on New Year’s Eve, down 38% from Sunday and down 7% from its $10.95m first-Monday-gross. We can expect a big jump today, but after that life returns to normal, relatively speaking, with adults going back to work and kids either re-starting school or going back into a few more days of holiday camp. And yes, the film has now earned $199.5m domestic in 11 days of release. Inflation notwithstanding, it’ll end tomorrow above the $200m mark and above the likes of Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($202m in 2014), Batman Begins ($205m in 2005), Thor: The Dark World ($206m in 2013) in domestic earnings. At a glance, it should be at around $212m today and thus pass Venom, Justice League, Logan and Doctor Strange by Friday.
However, for what it’s worth, that 38% drop from Sunday and 7% drop from last Monday signifies the point where Aquaman stops playing like National Treasure: Book of Secrets (-14%/+31%) or Jack Reacher (-15%/+28%) and starts playing like a Hobbit prequel. That’s okay, as Aquaman was never going to pull equivalent multipliers to the Nic Cage sequel ($220m from a $44m launch in 2007) or the Tom Cruise actioner ($80m from a $15m debut in 2012). With the caveat that I Am Legend and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opened a week earlier than Aquaman in 2007 and 2012, a similar path from this point onward would give the DC Films flick a domestic total of $255m to $265m, which would be a perfectly normal 3.5x multiplier.
Yes, as expected, that would be the second-lowest DC Films flick thus far between Justice League ($226 million) and Man of Steel ($291m). The Zack Snyder-directed Superman origin story really did pull in a pretty penny back in the day (it was the biggest-grossing straight-up reboot in North America until Spider-Man: Homecoming), even though WB was right to be concerned about the word-of-mouth and swift decline (it pulled a mere 2.27x from its $128m debut weekend). Putting aside hopes of a $1 billion+ finish for Batman v Superman, it’s not implausible to presume that a straight-up Man of Steel 2 would have done the usual “down domestic but way up overseas” scenario (think Game of Shadows or Iron Man 2) and ended up with a more acceptable $700m+ global finish.
Speaking of global finishes, it looks like Aquaman may indeed be playing like The Desolation of Smaug ($258 million domestic/$958m worldwide), The Battle of the Five Armies ($255m/$956m), Age of Extinction ($245m/$1.1 billion), On Stranger Tides ($241m/$1b) and Fate of the Furious ($226m/$1.2b). That’s not exactly esteemed company (even though I’m the weirdo who thinks Transformers 4 is, by default, the best Transformers), but it won’t be much of a concern if Aquaman gets to $1 billion (or $950m) without relying as much on domestic box office. That $260m+ in China is the key, but money is money (even if WB only gets 25% of the Chinese money). Oh, and with $563m overseas (plus whatever it made yesterday), Aquaman has passed Batman v Superman ($543m) to become DC Films’ biggest overseas grosser.
Once it passes $636 million overseas, it’ll pass The Dark Knight Rises (in 2012 and in 2-D) be the biggest DC Comics earner behind The Dark Knight Rises (in 2012 and sans 3-D) to become the biggest DC Comics grosser outside of North America. Yes, Aquaman could leg it to $1 billion and/or above the $1.003b cume of The Dark Knight (in 2008 and sans 3-D) and the $1.084b cume of The Dark Knight Rises to become the biggest DC Comics movie ever worldwide. Regardless, once it passes $900m (and it should pass $800m tomorrow or Thursday), it’ll be the fifth-biggest solo superhero movie ever, just ahead of Spider-Man 3 ($890m in 2007) and well below the Nolan Dark Knight sequels, Iron Man 3 ($1.2b in 2013) and Black Panther ($1.346b). Your move, Captain Marvel…