My Posts on the DCEU's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom's (aka Aquaman 2)'s Box Office Performance (Collected)

During the run-up to and aftermath of the release of the DCEU's feature film Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom I tracked the discussion of the movie's box office prospects, and then its actual theatrical performance, as well as the fallout therefrom. For convenience's sake I have gathered together the items (some of them fairly short) on this one page, in order of appearance and dated--while also updating the links from posts referencing them so that they all lead here.

June 6, 2023
Aquaman 2, China and the Film's Chances of a $1 Billion Gross
Aquaman is, to date, the biggest money-maker the DCEU ever had--and its only current-dollar billion-dollar hit. However, the movie was only a "respectable" grosser at home by first-rank superhero movie standards (its $335 million rather less than what Wonder Woman made the year before). What really put it over the top was its especially strong overseas gross--accounting for some 71 percent of its worldwide income (also a franchise high).

The result is that, all other things being equal, one might hope for a strong performance on the part of the sequel, with even a significant drop in the real-terms gross from the original's ($1.15 billion when it came out in December 2018, more like $1.4 billion in 2023 dollars) allowing it to be the kind of $1 billion hit so elusive for Hollywood's live-action films these days.

Alas, all things are not equal, with one factor well worth remembering that China was especially important in making the movie such a success. (Without its $292 million gross there the movie would have ended its run with just $850 million.)

With China so important--accounting for a quarter of the worldwide box office gross--should Aquaman 2 suffer the way many more recent American releases have in China the film could already be expected to do significantly less well. (Should, for example, the film do only half the business in China that its predecessor did--which would be a lot better than, say, the Ant-Man sequel managed--that would in today's terms mean almost $200 million off the top.) Meanwhile the movie faces other, significant, headwinds:

* The five year wait since the last film--and the slight turnout of DCEU films in those five years, with all that meant for sustaining interest in, or even awareness of, the brand.

* The end of the DCEU as we know it, undermining any attempt to make Aquaman 2 "an event."

* Bad (frankly, very bad) buzz about the film itself.

It may also be that The Flash, if indeed poorly received after the breathless hype (as seems possible), may not be helpful to the next DCEU release.

The result is that, if Aquaman 2 is, apart from Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (which has missed its chance), and Indiana Jones 5 (the prospects of which are fading), the most likely contender for a $1 billion gross of any live-action movie coming out this year, I can easily picture it too falling short of the mark.

July 10, 2023
What Will Aquaman 2 Make? A Box Office Prediction
In considering what the final DCEU film, Aquaman 2, may make later this year one can find a basis for guesses in analogies with other comparable films--and application of these to what might be expected for it on the basis of the original Aquaman.

An obvious starting point is how major superhero franchise films have been doing lately--with and without the China market over which so many question marks hang (and which was so important to the first Aquaman movie's success).

At one end of the spectrum Guardians of the Galaxy 2 made $864 million at the global box office--which comes to $1.07 billion in May 2023 dollars. Without China's $100 million in ticket sales it comes to more like $948 million.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is likely to finish up with not much less than the original in current dollars--about $850 million. Without China the figure is more like $763 million. The result is that the film's gross is, in China's absence, about a fifth down, and this the best any such movie seems likely to do these days.

At the other end of the spectrum Black Panther 2 made just over half (53 percent) of what the original Black Panther did in real terms. Exclusion from China was a factor, but even when we set China aside the movie still made just 58 percent of what the original did.

So let us assume that in the best-case scenario the movie makes 80 percent of what the original did outside China, in the worst-case scenario, just 60 percent.

Meanwhile let us consider the film's prospects in China. In the worst case the film will not come out there at all, but should it come out one may take the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man franchises as suggestive of the range. In China Guardians of the Galaxy 3 did, if less well than elsewhere, relatively well by the standards of Hollywood in China these days, taking in 70 percent of what Guardians of the Galaxy 2 did. By contrast Ant-Man 3 took in just 30 percent of what Ant-Man 2 did there.

In May 2023 dollars Aquaman took in $1.04 billion outside China. It also took in $350 million in China, for a take of nearly $1.4 billion overall.

The most positive scenario, with 80 percent of the non-China gross, and 70 percent of the China gross, of the original, would come to a $1.09 billion total take (less than a quarter down from the original's gross).

The least positive scenario within the range discussed here would come to more like $730 million (scarcely half what the original made).

Round for the nearest fifty million, and you end up with a range of $750 million-$1.1 billion, with, splitting the difference, somewhere around $900 million the middle of the range.

If a significant comedown from what might have been hoped from the strength of the original's reception, this would probably be the best gross of any superhero movie, or any live-action movie, this year. However, just as this kind of calculation was (as I warned back in April and as has since been amply confirmed) overoptimistic in the case of Indiana Jones 5 (which conventionally should have been a safe bet for a billion-dollar gross given the performance of prior entries in the series), given the headwinds it faced (which have all too clearly mattered), so it may be with Aquaman 2--given very poor buzz about the quality of the film, the way the DCEU seems to be going less than gracefully, the poor impression made by the overhyping and subsequent disappointing reception of The Flash. Indeed, just as I warned about the possibility of a Solo-like collapse on the part of Indiana Jones 5, so does it seem worth warning about the possibility of a similar collapse in the case of Aquaman 2. Just as Indiana Jones 5 now looks like it will struggle to make forty percent of what might have been normally expected for it (and Aquaman 2's preceding DCEU universe film, The Flash, looks as if it is doing the same Aquaman 2, instead of the circa $900 million that could be expected for it amid the lowered expectations of today's global box office, could likewise find itself falling short of the half billion dollar mark, and even the $400 million mark.

To sum up: in May 2023 dollars, a likely range of $750 million-$1.1 billion, $900 million as the figure I think most likely assuming a "normal" run, with, not to be forgotten, a real prospect of collapse seeing it make less than half that (<$400 million) in these not-so-normal times.

November 3, 2023
Fandango's Poll and Aquaman 2
Fandango's recent poll found that the film movie audiences seem to be looking forward to most is Captain Marvel 2.

Aquaman 2 came right after it.

Right now Captain Marvel 2's prospects are none too bright. The implication is that Aquaman 2 will do worse--this sequel to the DCEU's biggest hit (its sole billion-dollar hit) ending up on a level with its poorest performer by far, The Flash.

If so it would be another blow to the increasingly battered DCEU, and the increasingly shaky superhero genre of which it has been so large a part this past decade—and box office-watchers should keep the possibility in mind as the tracking-based estimates for the movie start going public in the coming weeks.

November 24, 2023
Aquaman 2: Boxoffice Pro Posts its First Long-Range Forecast for the Film's Domestic Gross
Considering Aquaman 2 (aka Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom) I did wonder if the movie would not defy the trend of franchise failure. After all, the first Aquaman film was relatively well-received, this only the second film in the sequence (in contrast with characters of which the public had had time to grow more weary), and the trailer looked very credible (certainly a lot more exciting than the one for Captain Marvel 2). Still, the pattern of failure has been fairly consistent (underlined even by the only comparative success of Guardians of the Galaxy 3), the always more vulnerable DC Extended Universe has done very badly indeed this year (with Shazam 2, Blue Beetle and of course The Flash), while the fact that the DCEU is not so much building to a triumphant climax as being handled like a canceled TV show "burning off" its last unaired episodes. The result is that I tried not to be overly negative, but all the same, taking up the subject back in July it seemed to me necessary to allow for a scenario of collapse at the box office in which the film fell short of not just the billion-dollar barrier the first such movie broke, but >$400 million globally.

Now Boxoffice Pro (just as it did with Captain Marvel 2 back in October) is affirming the anticipation of collapse with the publication of its first tracking data-based long-range forecast for the film, specifically an opening weekend take in the range of $32-$42 million (versus The Flash's $55 million and Captain Marvel 2's $47 million), and a domestic total range of $105-$168 million (such that at the low end it could take in less than The Flash). Compared with the first film the total gross would be about 60 to 75 percent less than the movie made in real terms ($335 million in 2018-2019, equaling $410 million in today's terms), a drop comparable to what Captain Marvel 2 suffered in comparison with the first Captain Marvel film.

Such figures make a very considerable worldwide multiplier necessary to turn a domestic performance like this one into a respectable, break even-approaching earner, and alas, in contrast with that other series that Aquaman star Jason Momoa appeared in this year, Fast and Furious, this series has little such hope. Fast X made four times its domestic gross internationally ($559 million to its $146 million in North America)--but superhero movies, a particularly American passion, tend not to do so well internationally, with the first Aquaman, which made about two-and-a-half times what it did domestically abroad, as good as it gets. Moreover, one should note that this was overwhelmingly due to a very strong response from China, which is very unlikely to be forthcoming this time given the reception of more recent American films there. The result is that Aquaman 2 would be doing well to make three times its domestic gross globally, which in even the most positive current scenario detailed by Boxoffice Pro would leave it a half billion at best, as much worse becomes imaginable (such that it could end up with a lot less than $400 million).

Of course, there is still a month to go before that movie actually hits theaters--but as The Flash and Captain Marvel 2 both showed, the movie's prospects could decay rather than improve, while, even if the faintness of the competition this year should seem a point in the movie's favor, it by no means guarantees its "cleaning up." The way the box office works these days the lack of appetizing alternatives on the menu does not mean that others will order up this one--and so for now the safest guess would seem to be the DCEU's last movie concluding the franchise's run with a whimper rather than a roar of triumph, with all that implies for the fantasy of a mighty new DCEU finally satisfying the WBD's longstanding Marvel envy, to say nothing of the superhero film, the franchise film, the blockbuster as we know it more broadly and the fate of a Hollywood which, battered by events beyond its control (like the pandemic, and the geopolitical turn hurting it in China) has also inflicted plenty of wounds on itself--while showing not the least sign of behaving more intelligently in the years ahead.

January 26, 2024
Aquaman 2 vs. Captain Marvel 2 at the Box Office
In a month of global release Aquaman 2 has collected almost $400 million at the worldwide box office.

Compared to the original film (which took in almost a billion dollars more in its run in inflation-adjusted terms), this is a disaster--a gross of less than one-third of what its predecessor made. Indeed, the neighborhood of $400 million was about what I estimated back in September when talking about a scenario of collapse for the Aquaman series.

However, there is no question that it is far superior to what that obvious point of comparison, Captain Marvel 2, managed in the same season--about twice as much in fact (Captain Marvel 2 having barely broken the $200 million barrier before hitting streaming). One may add that the Aquaman sequel did this in spite of having its own burden of unhelpful factors, like the equally long wait since the last film (five rather long years from the end of 2018 to the end of 2023), the fact that it was coming after not a comparative hit for its "cinematic universe" the way Captain Marvel 2 did (the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, if not all that might have been hoped for, still pulling in over $800 million just a half year before Marvel hit theaters) but the debacle that was the release of The Flash, and the weakness of its own promotional campaign, which gave many the impression that the studio was all but refusing to throw good money after bad.

Does this at all refute the claims of superhero fatigue and franchise fatigue? Absolutely not. In fact it confirms them when we consider just how badly one megabudgeted superhero epic after another flopped, especially from June forward, underlining how little the audience's showing up for them can be taken for granted now as compared with before the pandemic. Still, I am doubtful that those who make the decisions will heed the lessons. Rather I suspect that the studio bosses will seize on anything and everything that can seem to justify their "staying the course"--treating Aquaman 2 as a comparative success story for not doing as badly as Captain Marvel 2, even with so much against it (and play up the reception of Guardians of the Galaxy 3, and anything else they can think of), as grounds that they can still make this work--that all they need is better writers" and more "adult supervision" for directors, and all will be well--all as the onlookers well aware that they are just digging a bigger hole for themselves await their chance to once more tell them "I told you so."

February 2, 2024
How Did Aquaman 2 Play in China?
Back in 2018 a significant factor in the first Aquaman film's success was its exceptionally robust performance internationally, especially in China. Grossing just short of $292 million there, this made it the DCEU's sole billion-dollar success to date (and that when, five inflationary years earlier, a billion was worth quite a bit more than it is now).

Speculating about the sequel's likely overall gross I acknowledged that that level of success in China was very unlikely (the opportunities for Hollywood there have shrunk considerably these past several years), but it still seems worth considering how the movie did there. According to Box Office Mojo the film has, to date, picked up just under $60 million in China--about a fifth of what the original did before inflation, about a sixth after, a drop of 83 percent or so from what the film made.

This is considerably worse than the film's North American or international performance outside China.* The North American gross stands at about $118 million--about 71 percent down from the original's inflation-adjusted gross, while the gross for the world outside China stands at about $353 million, and just 67 percent down from the first film's gross for the "non-Chinese market." (Indeed, had the film's gross relative to its predecessor in China held up merely as well as it did in the rest of the world it would have made twice as much money, putting Aquaman on the road to a half billion dollar gross.)

The fact that this sequel to a movie so well-received in China five years ago has fallen so much further there than elsewhere (where those backing the movie might have hoped for the opposite, that the sequel would have held up better in China than in other markets) can seem a reminder of just how rough the going is for American film in China generally these days, adding to its already enormous stateside problems.

* The original Aquaman made $335 million domestically and $1.152 billion globally. Adjusted from December 2018 to December 2023 prices this gives us figures of about $410 million on the domestic front and $1.41 billion globally. By comparison the movie has made a little under $120 million at home, and $410 million worldwide.