'Aquaman 2' Passes $400M and 'Godzilla Minus One' Tops 'Hero' as 'Beekeeper' Wins Weekend

On the plus side, a lack of newbies meant longer legs for the holdovers and the films that recently recieved high-profile Oscar nominations

No, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom isn’t quite a hit. That said, the $200 million, James Wan-directed DC Films finale did swim past $412 million worldwide this weekend. So, yeah, the Jason Momoa-led underwater action fantasy has at least passed the $400 million global cume of the $165 million-budgeted Dune. That said, yes, I would expect Dune Part Two to potentially take a Spider-Verse-sized jump (from $380 million in 2018 to $690 million in 2023) as a breakout sequel when it opens on March 1. I also wish folks would stop throwing around “$1 billion worldwide” as a shorthand for box office success. I’ll again note the sheer advocacy-driven narrative that existed for Dune in late 2021 where a domestic total on par with The Flash and a global cume on par with Eternals was heralded as a top-tier box office result.

But I digress, the Jason Momoa-led underwater action fantasy has passsed the $396 million global cume of Black Adam to make it the biggest-earning DC Films flick since the $1.15 billion-grossing Aquaman in late 2018/early 2019. A reprise of that success was arguably never in the cards, if only because China isn’t throwing $298 million at Hollywood tentpoles anymore. Lost Kingdom’s current $60 million China cume is decent by post-2019 standards.

I again wonder what might have transpired to DC Films absent Covid, since so much of what transpired in 2020 and beyond (Wonder Woman 1984 getting sacrificed to the HBO Max gods, the SnyderVerse returning to the front the discourse, Ezra Miller seemingly going off the proverbial deep end, Batgirl getting greenlit and then shelved, Dwayne Johnson trying to pull a coup on the franchise (but without pre-Covid levels of Chinese box office to make Black Adam into a hit) and the extent to which the American Amber Heard/Johnny Depp civil trial became mainstream news either wouldn’t have happened in a non-pandemic world (no need for HBO Max content = no Zack Snyder’s admittedly superior version of Justice League) or wouldn’t have been as obsessed upon in a conventional news cycle.

However, Aquaman 2 has passed Warner Bros. Discovery’s Meg 2: The Trench ($390 million) to become just the second-largest Hollywood grosser since #Barbenheimer after WBD’s Wonka ($197 million domestic and $552 million-and-counting). In a skewed way, the overperformance of Wonka somewhat made up for the soft run of Aquaman 2 and even The Color Purple ($60 million domestic and $2.2 million overseas as it begins its international run — but on a $100 million budget). If we were treating WBD’s December slate as a package deal, which is frankly how it works for a streamer, we’d have three films that will earn around $1.1 billion worldwide (and thus delivered around $650 million to theaters). That’s nearly three times their respective combined production $430 million budgets, which would be a hit for one $430 million movie even accounting for marketing but also noting post-theatrical revenue.

As I noted in an article for Puck News a few weeks ago, there’s a case to be made that The Color Purple should be treated on a curve not unlike Napoleon and Killers of the Flower Moon. Both were $200 million streaming features whose theatrical release was mostly a matter of Apple paying for prestige, awareness and whatever revenue could be found via the theatrical circuit. David Zaslav may or may not be the devil, but he was ahead of the curve in realizing that streaming-exclusive movies were a financial disaster and that walling up A-level films and shows for a first-party streaming platform was leaving money on the table. While The Color Purple was, like Wish and The Marvels, greenlit for theoretical theatrical profitability, the “new” value that recent Warner Bros. releases have found as popular third-party Netflix titles in-turn make a big-deal prestige flick like The Color Purple that much more valuable to Netflix and thus to WBD.

Anyway, warts and all, Warner Bros. Discovery more-or-less saved Christmas for movie theaters, with a little help from Godzilla Minus One (which just passed $55 million), The Boy and the Heron ($44 million-and-counting) and Anyone But You (now at $71 million domestic and $126 million worldwide thus far from a $6 million opening weekend on a $25 million budget). And if their slew of franchise-specific tentpoles (Dune Part Two, Godzilla X Kong, Furiosa, etc.) actually deliver over the course of 2024, well, I hope Toby Emmerich gets a fruit basket for the occasion.

What else happened this weekend? Well, Universal and Illumination’s Migration crossed $100 million domestic and $200 million worldwide. That’s good enough for the $72 million, buzz-lite original feature, especially considering how well Universal toons perform in the post-theatrical ecosystem (including huge Netflix viewership when the time comes). It’s also just the second original animated film — alongside Pixar’s Elemental last summer — to pass both of those box officce milestones since Coco in 2017. To be fair, Disney’s Wish earned just $63 million domestic but has passed $233 million worldwide.

Meanwhile, Toho International’s Oscar-nominated Godzilla Minus One returned to wide release via a black-and-white cut and earned another $2.6 million in 2,051 theaters. That brings its domestic cume to $55 million, while also making it the third-biggest foreign-language earner ever in unadjusted domestic grosses. It’ll probably pass Life is Beautiful ($57 million in 1999) next weekend but Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ($128 million in 2000) is safe in the top spot.

Amusingly enough, Jason Statham’s The Beekeeper was the top film of the Fri-Sun frame, dropping just 14% for a $7.4 million gross and $42.3 million 17-day cume. That barely surpassed Mean Girls’ $7.3 million (-37%) third frame, giving the Paramount musical a $61 million 17-day cume. The latter is absolutely a hit, especially as the $35 million-budgeted adaptation of the stage show adaptation of the 2004 movie was greenlit for Paramount+ before wiser heads prevailed.

The former is now days away from passing the unadjusted $43.5 million domestic cume of Transporter 2 to become Statham’s biggest non-Meg star vehicle ever. With over $100 million worldwide amid a global weekend of around $18.4 million, it will soon pass Mechanic: Resurrection ($126 million in 2016, including $49 million in China) to take that milestone globally as well. Credit generational nostalgia for the 2000’s-era Statham vehicles, a present-tense interest in these old-school actioners a broader exposure thanks to key roles in The Meg, the Fast and Furious franchise and Spy as well as Amazon’s apparent ability to use its marketing domination to create awareness for its theatricals. Speaking of which, George Clooney’s The Boys in the Boat now sits at $47.5 million domestic following a $5.6 million Christmas Day Monday debut.

Moreover, Cord Jefferson’s terrific American Fiction, which recieved deserved Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Jeffrey Wright’s lead performance, Sterling K. Brown’s supporting turn, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score, expanded to 1,702 theaters. It earned $2.9 million (+65%) for a new $11.8 million cume. Just above it my other favorite Best Picture nominee, Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, which expanded to 2,300 theaters and earned $3 million (+43%) for a new $24.7 million cume. That’s pretty close to Lanthimos’ previous Emma Stone-starring vehicle, The Favourite which had $26 million after its first post-nomination weekend. A24 finally released now-Best Picture nominated The Zone of Interest into 317 theaters. Jonathan Glazer’s “banality of evil” Holocaust drama earned $1.084 million for a $3 million cume.