Christmas season is about to be very, very good to Warner Bros. and DC Films. Next week sees the arrival of what will surely be the biggest blockbuster hit of Christmas 2018, as the superhero origin film Aquaman makes a huge splash in theaters around the world following its record-breaking debut in China last weekend (by today, it will surpass every previous DC movie’s total box office in China). With more than $100 million in the tank by now, James Wan’s lavish comic book adaptation has enjoyed early positive reactions from critics and apparently superb word of mouth from audiences who’ve been lucky enough to see it. Can Jason Momoa turn his Atlantean King into another breakout success akin to Wonder Woman last year? Read on for my latest box office estimates and full review…
Last weekend, I wrote about Aquaman’s enormous opening weekend numbers in China, where it scored $94 million and became the biggest Middle Kingdom opening for a Warner Bros. film in history, not to mention the biggest opening for any DC movie in that market. My analysis pointed out that based on a lot of number-crunching and comparisons, the China numbers made it look pretty obvious Aquaman would gross at least $700-800 million worldwide, unless it suffered some bizarre slump in most other major markets. The highest-end math suggests it’s technically possible the film might gross as high as $1.6 billion, although I noted this seemed an outrageously high figure and I doubted it was plausible.
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I won’t repeat all of the math and analysis again, so I’ll just point you to that article for the nuances, and offer my final official box office estimates here.
Having seen Aquaman, I’ll now upgrade my estimate and say I think the movie will take $1+ billion, with $800-900 million being my lowest-end estimate and $1.4 billion being my current highest-end estimate. This film is going to be huge, and it will enjoy a lot of repeat business. Word of mouth will be off the charts among key demographics, and it’s going to get very positive critical reception, all of which will translate into long and strong legs at the box office through the holidays and into the New Year.
Since I think Mary Poppins Returns will perform lower than earlier expectations (not that it will flop, just that I no longer feel it’s going to be the biggest film of the holiday), and since I think Bumblebee will be a big hit but might perform slightly lower due to audiences seeming to have grown a tad weary of the Transformers franchise, I now believe Aquaman will be the top film of the Christmas season.
My domestic expectation is Aquaman will open north of $75+ million for the three day weekend, top $100 million for the five-day Christmas holiday, and end its North American run north of $300+ million. Internationally, I expect an even stronger play, with (I’m guessing) China’s eventual $250 million in box office receipts repping about 30+/-% of the foreign gross. So with $300+ million domestic and around $800+ million international, Aquaman could top $1.1 billion worldwide.
On the lowest end of my estimates, I don’t expect anything less than a $70+ million domestic bow, translating into a worst-case $200+ million total in North America. Internationally, the low end would be around $200 million in China, repping about one-third of a total $600 million from foreign receipts. That would set the minimum box office at roughly $800 million worldwide. And that’s my low-end prediction, remember.
Mainstream audiences are going to flip for Aquaman, of that I have no doubt. And I think it will be the best-reviewed DCEU film besides Wonder Woman. It will almost certainly become the highest-grossing DCEU release to date, and I think it could hold onto that crown for quite a while.
Why am I so bullish on Aquaman? Because it’s a nonstop rollercoaster ride of heart-pounding action, eye-popping visual spectacle, and all-around crowd-pleasing blockbuster entertainment that is insanely enjoyable to watch.
James Wan has crafted a superhero comic book come to glorious, vivid life. First and foremost, no other superhero movie has really ever looked like this before — the colors, imagery, and visual concepts are big and bold, bright and stunning, taking us back and forth from complimentary and contrasting surface-world locales to breathtaking undersea settings. Atlantis is like Avatar underwater, if the Na’vi had advanced sci-fi technology. There are hidden seas within the sea, dark and foreboding caverns of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an artist-poets civilization of Fishermen, and other glorious places within the oceans to explore.
I cannot stress enough how much the aesthetics of Aquaman differ from anything you’ve seen before in superhero cinema, from either DC or Marvel. The trailers don’t give you a true sense of the scope and scale, of the crispness of each shot and pulsating hues. Coupled with the high quality and visceral effect of the action itself, the visuals explode off the screen with immense power, each seemingly more potent than the last.
Momoa’s arc as Aquaman is solid and includes some especially thoughtful, intelligent self-awareness and self-criticism. He’s a guy who resists being called a hero, because despite his outward cockiness he fears he’s not really up to the bigger tasks his powers and supposed “destiny” imply. The inclusion of a deep-seated guilt and regret from his earlier life, and how he internalizes the hatred and distrust of Atlanteans even while he resents and hates them in return, provides a nice subtext to his devil-may-care pretense that’s become a shield against forming deeper relationships and commitments. Momoa plays the role with a sense of humor, but also a great deal of love and reverence. He’s got the physicality for a superhero role, but he also brings an easy charm I hadn’t fully realized he possesses on screen (it’s apparent in real life, though) and can seem decidedly vulnerable at the right times.
Amber Heard as Mera is the sort of “love interest” that we need more of in superhero films — she’s actually not treated as a “love interest” but rather as a buddy-hero alongside Aquaman. She has her own battles, she saves Aquaman more than once, there’s no “damsel in distress” moment, and she gets a lot of the motivational lines and speeches in the film. She’s smart, capable, and could’ve carried out most of the missions herself is Aquaman weren’t around.
There’s less emotional arc for Mera, unfortunately, other than her desire to be rid of an unworthy king and prevent a war — which sound like pretty significant motivations, and they are, but they mostly play out as broad sentiments rather than nuanced emotional commitments. Her most demonstrated resonant emotional conviction is her devotion to making Aquaman take responsibility for his destiny, which of course fits the story since supporting character arcs should ultimately feed the main character arc, but it would’ve been nice to see her own “skin in the game” manifesting more overtly.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta is Aquaman’s most hated enemy, and the film really sets up their conflict perfectly, giving Manta a singular understandable drive. Also, he’s simply one of the coolest-looking villains in comics, and now he’s become one of the absolutely coolest-looking villains in movies. Patrick Wilson’s Ocean Master has a few different motives and goals, and it all works well, even though I’d like to have seen more passionate emphasis on his sense of righteousness regarding the threat posed by the surface world.
Nicole Kidman’s Atlanna is a wonderfully developed role, and the one with the strongest emotional presentation. She packs so much into a relatively small number of scenes, but it’s such a full story and Kidman brings it all to life perfectly. Temuera Morrison as Tom Curry likewise squeezes so much out of his scenes, despite having limited screen time, and together Kidman and Morrison deliver a warm beating heart for the story in the opening sequences. The opening setup, by the way, is like a master class in efficient storytelling with fast pacing, great visual cues, and minimal dialogue.
Dolph Lundgren plays King Nereus, and Willem Dafoe plays Nuidis Vulko, both actors delivering smart, restrained performances as dignified royalty who must choose sides in an increasingly brutal and complicated conflict.
The cast all get chances to stand out despite how fast and furious the action comes. I assure you, this is one of the most action-packed and fast-paced superhero film you’ll ever see, yet it doesn’t feel overloaded or tiring. There are moments of rest, but absolutely no more than necessary, and they last exactly long enough to catch your breath and not a second longer.
In the context of the fast pacing, I appreciated that as the heroes travel the globe in their quests and jump from one location to another, the story didn’t always try to set up or explain everything. Aquaman and Mera wind up in a plane at one point, and in a boat at another point, without trying too hard to tell us how they rented the plane and so on. They’re just there, and the filmmakers knew we’d be smart enough to accept it without being told “they made some calls, found a plane they could charter, boarded it, and wound up in the air over their destination later.”
The film isn’t perfect, obviously. Some of the action, particularly when the massive climactic battle gets underway (and it’s an epic one for the ages, let me tell you), can be so busy and filled with fighting and killing and last-second reversals that it probably could’ve been shortened by a minute or two. But for a CGI-fest of typical overstuffed proportions, it’s a pretty gorgeous and brilliantly realized one. The emotional stakes of it feel less than they should, though, since we’re waiting for a separate showdown that will encapsulate our real personal interest in the characters who matter to us in the story. However, the end of it all is more than satisfying enough, and does indeed deliver on those emotional stakes.
Now I want to address a few other points relevant to DC fans, who have been wondering and worrying incessantly about these particular issues for months. So let’s talk about it…
Aquaman is more similar to Wonder Woman than it is to Batman v Superman or Man of Steel. And it’s similar in spirit and tone to Superman and Superman II. It’s also similar in certain ways to The Avengers and Black Panther. But it also carries over the conception of Aquaman from the early stages of the DCEU, and the story it tells is pretty much the one that was always intended. It’s the same Aquaman you met previously, played by the same actor, and it takes inspiration from some of the greatest Aquaman comic book stories.
Yes, Aquaman is brighter in color and has more humor than some previous DCEU films (although I think Suicide Squad and Justice League both had more jokes and humor than Aquaman). But those aren’t bad things — the film is very unique in its visual approach and pacing, compared to other superhero films. We can love Batman v Superman and also love Aquaman, because the films — just like the comics — can be different things at different times, while still being part of the same larger whole and remaining faithful to the characters and the fans.
A final note here, and I admit in advance this is a bit of bragging, but it’s also to drive home just how much this movie appealed to me: In 2012, I wrote a long piece at Quora in which I offered my ideas for several superheroes who should get their own movies. One of the heroes I wrote about was Aquaman, and I explained that my ideal Aquaman movie would cast Jason Momoa as a tattooed dirty-bleach-blonde hero with long hair and a beard — a tough warrior akin to a heroic version of Momoa’s character Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones. I said it should be like Avatar underwater, with a dash of Pirates of the Caribbean thrown in for the high-seas adventurism. My pick for the villain was Black Manta, and I suggested a story that put the survival of Atlantis and the surface world in jeopardy, along with some origin elements for Aquaman too.
I’ll also note my favorite Aquaman source material are the stories written by Geoff Johns. They are the gold standard of Aquaman storytelling in my opinion (much like Johns’ Green Lantern comic book stories are the greatest, definitive tales of Green Lantern). And those stories inspired and influenced this movie a lot.
So, yeah. I got my Aquaman movie. I mean, I got MY Aquaman movie — the one that lived in my heart, the one I yearned to see yet never really believed would ever be made. With so much of what I wanted built into it from the start of the DCEU, it was going to be pretty hard for anyone to screw this up for me personally. And James Wan delivered on the promise like gangbusters. This movie is exactly it needs to be to win over mainstream audiences and erase any lingering doubts about the character’s ability to be taken seriously as a major successful superhero franchise.
Aquaman is an amazing achievement in superhero cinema, filled with pulse-pounding action and dazzling visual effects. It’s Indiana Jones, Black Panther, Avatar, and Pirates of the Caribbean rolled into one blockbuster ball of holiday cinema for your entire family. And trust me — see it in IMAX and see it in Dolby Vision, to make sure you get the full impact of the imagery and colors. Oh, and stay through the credits!
Box office figures and tallies based on data via Box Office Mojo , Rentrak, and TheNumbers.
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