Aquaman is swimming towards $400 million at the worldwide box office after just two weeks, reports Box Office Guru editor Gitesh Pandya.
The James Wan-directed blockbuster first rolled out in China December 7, where it’s earned the majority of its haul with $209.5 million as of Thursday.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Following Dec. 12 roll outs in Mexico ($12.3m), Indonesia ($9.9m), the UK ($9.8m), Taiwan ($6.6m), the Philippines ($6.3m) and Malaysia ($5.2m), Aquaman reached Brazil ($13.2m), Russia ($10.2m), and Thailand ($5.1m) Dec. 13, before earning $6.3m in India since its Dec. 14 release.
Aquaman earned an additional $9 million in its North American opening night Thursday, bringing its domestic total to $13.7m when accounting for its Amazon Prime-backed early preview showings last weekend.
Its total now stands at $345.8 million.
The DC Films production is making a splash in the Middle Kingdom, where Aquaman won studio Warner Bros. its biggest-ever opening day in China with RMB 169 million ($24.6m).
Warner Bros.’ shared DC Comics-inspired universe has since passed $4 billion at the worldwide box office following its push from the undersea superhero, after launching in 2013 with the Zack Snyder-directed Man of Steel.
Aquaman is expected to outgross the DCEU’s two lowest earners, Man of Steel and Justice League, which pulled in $668m and $657m worldwide, respectively.
The film is faring better with critics and audiences than past DCEU entries: it’s earned a 64 percent on Rotten Tomatoes — giving the DCEU only its second non-rotten score, behind only Wonder Woman‘s 93 percent “certified fresh” — where it boasts an 86 percent “liked it” score from audiences with nearly 17,000 votes.
Despite its box office waves, Wan admitted to ComicBook.com he’s not yet decided on pursuing a sequel.
“I actually don’t know what I want to do next for the first time in my career. I felt like Aquaman ticked a lot of boxes for me,” Wan said.
“I want[ed] to do another action movie after Furious 7, I wanted to do a world creation film, and I wanted to do a superhero movie, and Aquaman literally ticked all of those boxes for me. And so right now, I’m in that sort of place of like, do I kind of go back and do a smaller movie maybe as my next one, something a bit more intimate? Or if I can do a personal movie, but maybe it’s on a bigger scale. I’m not sure at this point.”
Wan, who in recent years steered The Conjuring and its sequel to big box office numbers for Warner Bros., said it’s easy to get burned out when lingering on any one universe or genre too long.
“If I spend too long doing horror films, I get really horror-ed out. If I spend too long doing superhero movie[s], like I’ve spent three years of my life doing this one, I am a little bit superhero-ed out a little bit as well,” Wan said.
“So I’m always trying to find new things to sort of challenge me, and that’s what it comes down to. If I can creatively click with whatever I do next, that’s what I look for.”
Starring Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Willem Dafoe and Nicole Kidman, Aquaman is now playing.