Worse still for the King of the Sea is the first Aquaman out-performed all expectations, grossing a staggering $1.15 billion around the globe. But that film played like gangbusters for its target audience, earning a sterling “A-” CinemaScore from polled moviegoers on its first day, which bore out great word-of-mouth. Aquaman 2, by comparison, garnered a tepid “B” CinemaScore, the same grade given to this year’s The Flash and The Marvels, which went on to have now infamous box office runs. And Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom opened lower in four days than what both of those movies did in three (it also dropped significantly on Saturday, suggesting the WOM is similarly bleak).
In other words, things are not looking good for Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry, even before you factor in Aquaman 2’s budget was reportedly pegged at $205 million this time last year (not counting marketing or a rumored extra round of reshoots). If The Marvels’ recent November holiday run is any indication, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom may be facing stormy seas if it hopes to swim toward a profit.
Which may be a long way of saying the second Aquaman puts a grim capstone on what’s been the opposite of a banner year for Warner Brothers’ DC brand. Of course the studio has been aware of the headwinds and negative associations the DC Extended Universe has been facing these past few years. It is for that reason new DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran elected to reboot the DC Universe from scratch, which became public knowledge when Gunn signaled last January he would recast Kal-El in Superman: Legacy.
A pivot seems shrewd given how audiences received other recent DC fare like Black Adam before 2023, however it’s worth noting Superman: Legacy will not be out until 2025. By heavily implying the entire 2023 slate of four DC superhero movies was essentially a collection of lame ducks to a fanbase trained to view the genre as interconnected serials (and therefore advertisements for next year’s crop), it might be argued WB told consumers that superhero flicks like Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Aquaman 2 were irrelevant. It’s worth considering since both the Shazam and Aquaman sequels dropped spectacularly from the highs of their predecessors. Then again, The Marvels disastrously tumbled as well from the 2019 glories of Captain Marvel.
Whatever the reason, the DC brand has not looked this vulnerable in the marketplace since audiences abandoned Batman & Robin in droves only two years after Batman Forever grossed 42 percent more in the summer of 1995. The fallout of that calamity was Hollywood moving away from superhero movies for the next three years, and away from colorful ones for longer (much, much longer, in the case of Batman).
Of course the 2020s are not the 1990s, and fiscal calendars are too invested in capes, cowls, and dedicated fanbases to be spooked by one bad year. And luckily, if you squint at the box office this Christmas, you might realize deliverance is within reach, even for the bleeding DC brand.