Box Office Thread

[psylockolussus]

Nice to see it over-performing. Will be the highest-grossing DCEU movie since the first Aquaman. And it will lose Warner only around 100M theatrically..

It is Not over performing.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

It is Not over performing.

Over-performing compared to how badly it could have done (The Marvels or The Flash numbers).

 

[Karelia]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there were multiple articles the week of release saying it was going to do worse than The Marvels.

I'd say it's probably done better than WB expected, given no red carpet or much advertising.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there were multiple articles the week of release saying it was going to do worse than The Marvels.

I'd say it's probably done better than WB expected, given no red carpet or much advertising.

It's also the third lowest-rated DCEU movie on RT with 34% and it tied with BvS and The Flash for having the lowest DCEU cinemascore (B). The fact that it's nearing 400M WW shows that Jason Momoa is still a draw.

 

[psylockolussus]

Over-performing compared to how badly it could have done (The Marvels or The Flash numbers).

No. Considering the holidays gave it a boost several times. The Marvels would have crossed the 100 million mark in North America too, if it was just opened around Christmas/New Years, plus the MLK weekend.

If you look at daily numbers, its always been outgrossed by other films which were made with a lower budget.

From $300 million+ to $115 million in North America and $1 billion to $400 million worldwide are massive drop off. Its only not that bad, if you thought it could have done worse. WBD aren't cheering when seeing these numbers.

 

[psylockolussus]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there were multiple articles the week of release saying it was going to do worse than The Marvels.

I'd say it's probably done better than WB expected, given no red carpet or much advertising.

i don't remember any articles saying this would do worse than The Marvels. It was obviously going to do gross better than The Marvels because of the holidays, especially in non weekend days.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Black Adam now in the rear view mirror. 400 coming this week.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) - Financial Information

Financial analysis of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) including budget, domestic and international box office gross, DVD and Blu-ray sales reports, total earnings and profitability.

the-numbers.com

 

[Comicbookguy339]

No. Considering the holidays gave it a boost several times. The Marvels would have crossed the 100 million mark in North America too, if it was just opened around Christmas/New Years, plus the MLK weekend.

If you look at daily numbers, its always been outgrossed by other films which were made with a lower budget.

From $300 million+ to $115 million in North America and $1 billion to $400 million worldwide are massive drop off. Its only not that bad, if you thought it could have done worse. WBD aren't cheering when seeing these numbers.

Look, nobody is saying this is a roaring success for WB. Even if they reach 400M WW, they'll still lose money on it. They spent 200M on the movie and another 100M on marketing. This thing needed to make around 600M WW to break even and that's clearly not happening. But during the weeks leading up to the opening weekend trackers were at one point looking at a sub-20M domestic opening weekend (and a 200M WW total gross). The movie ended up doing double that. It could have been a disaster, right now it's just a disappointment.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Two things saved this movie from being an outright disaster:

1.) The general audience appeal of Jason Momoa.
2.) The lack of competition in the legs friendly holiday corridor.

You put this movie out in the Summer or swap it's release date with The Marvels, we would no doubt have a very different story.

WB will not be making a profit on this thing theatrically and will be delighted they can now move on from the shackles of the DCEU.

Perhaps it could be best described as a ''pleasant disappointment''.

 

[Dr.]

Factor in future streaming/home video revenues and it might get close to breakeven. Certainly, it would be unfair to place Aquaman 2 in the same "bomb" category as Shazam 2, The Flash and The Marvels.

 

[kguillou]

The bar is so low i actually consider making $400M a success lmao.

 

[Dr.]

Aquaman 2 has finally passed (drum roll) $400M world-wide. Current total: $413M.

 

[Iceman]

Look, nobody is saying this is a roaring success for WB. Even if they reach 400M WW, they'll still lose money on it. They spent 200M on the movie and another 100M on marketing. This thing needed to make around 600M WW to break even and that's clearly not happening. But during the weeks leading up to the opening weekend trackers were at one point looking at a sub-20M domestic opening weekend (and a 200M WW total gross). The movie ended up doing double that. It could have been a disaster, right now it's just a disappointment.

Yep, a disappointment in a year where disasters became commonplace, and given all the BTS stuff on this one where a disaster was almost expected.

 

[kguillou]

Aquaman 2 has finally passed (drum roll) $400M world-wide. Current total: $413M.

Wow!! This movie’s got legs! I thought it was just going to barely scrape by $400m but that is not that half bad. Again we’re grading on a curve here.

 

[Filmfreak]

It's crazy that a DC movie at this era did better than Indy 5, which looked like one of the most promising films last year.

 

[Karelia]

Really cool to see it didn't do completely terrible at the B.O. given the circumstances.

 

[psylockolussus]

Look, nobody is saying this is a roaring success for WB. Even if they reach 400M WW, they'll still lose money on it. They spent 200M on the movie and another 100M on marketing. This thing needed to make around 600M WW to break even and that's clearly not happening. But during the weeks leading up to the opening weekend trackers were at one point looking at a sub-20M domestic opening weekend (and a 200M WW total gross). The movie ended up doing double that. It could have been a disaster, right now it's just a disappointment.

Again, i don't see any of those as "Over-performing",a word you have used to describe its numbers. I would use that word for successful movies not Aquaman 2.

Its still a flop, a financial disappointment for WBD.

 

[Filmfreak]

Overperfoming and underperforming are terms used to describe the box office gross of a film in relation to what the studio was expecting that movie to do before its release. It's not a measure of success or failure in terms of revenue.

That's why Aquaman 2 is indeed overperforming (unless we think about studio expectations at the time when it was originally greenlit, then it definitely isn't) and a movie like BvS underperformed hugely even though it made more than twice of what The Lost Kingdom is going to make, with a very similar budget.

 

[psylockolussus]

If a studio spent around $205 million (production value, I got that number from Google search) and earns $118 million in North America / 408million+ worldwide. That is not a film overperforming in my view.

And sure, boX office analysts and WBD were eXpecting lower numbers but it is still not overperforming as these are still terrible numbers especially considering the first Aquaman film was a huge success. It doesn't look too bad, compare to The Marvels, Shazam! 2, The Flash but these are still not good.

 

[Filmfreak]

Again, the very definition of overperforming in the dictionary is to perform better than expected, so the numbers on their own mean nothing.

A few years back, after the original Aquaman, the second entry would have severely underperformed, but after constant box office disasters, especially in the DCEU where the film did almost what the rest of their slate managed to make last year combined, the film overperformed for sure.

You can have an extremely successful movie underperforming and a box office bomb overperforming, if box office doesn't align with studio expectations. It's as simple as that.

 

[kguillou]

For a film that was considered basically DOA and had allegedly abysmal test screenings, I think making nearly $415million ww is a "win." Its not a win technically, but this way out performed every other DCEU entry since....the LAST Aquaman.

 

[psylockolussus]

Again, the very definition of overperforming in the dictionary is to perform better than expected, so the numbers on their own mean nothing.

A few years back, after the original Aquaman, the second entry would have severely underperformed, but after constant box office disasters, especially in the DCEU where the film did almost what the rest of their slate managed to make last year combined, the film overperformed for sure.

You can have an extremely successful movie underperforming and a box office bomb overperforming, if box office doesn't align with studio expectations. It's as simple as that.

You are seeing this in the perspective of someone who thought that movie was gonna do worse at the boX office.

I'm seeing this as a perspective of someone who remembers how the first Aquaman film eXceeded eXpectations (despite following the flop that was the Justice League movie. And how this film cost around $200 million. And as someone who visits boX office mojo everyday to see the daily numbers, its numbers aren't great. The weekend drops might not be that low especially compare to other recent superhero films, but with a low key December/November of 2023 (with Wonka as the highest grossing film from those months), it really should have grossed more.

This is not a success story when all things are said and done.

 

[Filmfreak]

You are seeing this in the perspective of someone who thought that movie was gonna do worse at the boX office.

I'm seeing this as a perspective of someone who remembers how the first Aquaman film eXceeded eXpectations (despite following the flop that was the Justice League movie. And how this film cost around $200 million. And as someone who visits boX office mojo everyday to see the daily numbers, its numbers aren't great. The weekend drops might not be that low especially compare to other recent superhero films, but with a low key December/November of 2023 (with Wonka as the highest grossing film from those months), it really should have grossed more.

This is not a success story when all things are said and done.

It's not about what I expected, but what the studio did.

A movie where they barely spend anything to market it, with multiple reported bad test screenings, other reports that were saying WB didn't want to spend a dime on more reshoots to fix it either, bad reviews, mediocre word of mouth. It's the one film out of their entire slate that they knew for sure was going to bomb. And it did. But that doesn't change the fact it also did far better than all other DC projects last year, which was not expected. Hence the overperformance, which again, is a term related to expectations and not absolute numbers.

If the same box office gross was happening in 2022 or 2019 it would be considered a massive underperformance, but alas, things have changed, and so have studio expectations. That doesn't mean that they're over the moon with its performance, but I'm sure they're not that displeased either.

 

[SomeOldGuy]

Feels to me like it finishes around 435-440 now.

 

[Dr.]

At this point, you could almost debate whether the movie will break even.