AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM Box Office Projections Are Not Great
A lot of people have been curious about how director James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is going to do at the box office. Well, according to early box office projections, as expected, it’s not expected to do well.
Box Office Pro has the DC Studios film tracking to make anywhere from $32-42 million during its opening weekend. In total, the Aquaman sequel is tracking for a domestic total return of $105-168 million. This is a substantial drop off from the original movie which somehow opened to $67.9 million in the United States and Canada in 2018. The film would go on to gross more than $1.1 billion in total worldwide.
An Exhibitor Relations box office analyst previously talked about the film’s box office, saying: "Everybody’s down on DC, but there is a chance, especially with the limited competition during the holiday season, that Aquaman could still play like gangbusters because of lack of product. Sometimes the right film at the right time is all you need."
I honestly don’t think that’s going to happen. Even if the movie actually turns out to be good, the movie most likely isn’t going to make a big splash at the box office. It’s not that everyone is “down on DC,” it’s that everyone is down on all superhero movies right now. Superhero fatigue has kicked in and the studios haven’t been very smart handling the franchises they’ve built as it’s turned into a quantity over quality game. It’s a sad truth that the studios are going to try and fix.
It’ll be interesting to see how the studios will be handling superhero films in the next three to five years. Will there be a real change? Will we start seeing more quality comic book movies made? Or, will they continue to pump out the same content over and over again?
In the Aquaman sequel, “Having failed to defeat Aquaman the first time, Black Manta, still driven by the need to avenge his father’s death, will stop at nothing to take Aquaman down once and for all,” the official Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom synopsis reads. “This time Black Manta is more formidable than ever before, wielding the power of the mythic Black Trident, which unleashes an ancient and malevolent force. To defeat him, Aquaman will turn to his imprisoned brother Orm, the former King of Atlantis, to forge an unlikely alliance. Together, they must set aside their differences in order to protect their kingdom and save Aquaman’s family, and the world, from irreversible destruction.”
Jason Momoa stars as Aquaman in the movie and he’s joined by Patrick Wilson as Orm, Amber Heard as Mera, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus and Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin.
Warner Bros. will release the film in theaters on December 20th.