After the underwhelming performance of Justice League, the pressure’s on Aquaman to put the DCEU commercially back on track, and based on the latest forecasts from Box Office Pro, Arthur Curry’s opening weekend doesn’t sound too bad considering the competition he’s dealing with.
As it stands, James Wan’s film is reportedly tracking for $40 to 60 million in its first three days. If all goes as expected, this would put the superhero movie ahead of Transformers spinoff Bumblebee ($15 – 25 million) and Mary Poppins Returns ($30 to 50 million). Box Office Pro observes fan excitement and a cast that should appeal to both men and women as reasons for why the Jason Momoa-led flick could come out on top.
By DCEU standards, the figures predicted for Aquaman are actually pretty low, and for the comic book movie genre in general, they aren’t great. I mean, Venom just opened to $80 million and it got destroyed by critics ahead of release. Still, when you factor in the film’s smaller budget, Arthur Curry still has a fighting chance of coming out well from his theatrical run, especially if good word of mouth keeps it afloat beyond this first weekend.
If all goes well for the feature, then we could end up seeing plenty more of Arthur and his Atlantean friends, with Momoa recently saying that he’s already pitched ideas to Warner for how the sequel should open. Wan, meanwhile, seems very proud of the underwater environment he’s created, claiming that there’s plenty of potential for future stories in this fantastical realm. As the DCEU seemingly moves away from its Justice League-centric past, the filmmaker seems keen to continue dabbling with the world he’s created without too much involvement from outside superheroes.
We’ll see if there’s still a future to this series when Aquaman hits theaters on December 21st.