'Aquaman' Helps the DCEU Cross $4 Billion at Worldwide Box Office

Though it has yet to open up stateside, the earnings of Aquaman overseas has boosted the DC Extended Universe franchise over the $4 billion mark at the worldwide box office. To date, Warner Brothers' shared superhero universe has made a total of $4.029 billion in theaters.

Thanks to a $100 million opening weekend haul in China, the James Wan-helmed film has tallied north of $261 million in the week it has been released abroad. Outside of China, the film's also been released in Brazil, Russia, Mexico, and a handful of other European and Asia-Pacific countries.

As it continues its strong push overseas, Aquaman will release in most remaining major markets — including the United States and Canada — this coming weekend.

Domestically speaking, the DC Extended Universe is doing fairly well with only six movies in its repertoire. Prior to Aquaman's U.S. debut, the DCEU has earned $1.5 billion stateside. In comparison, Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe has earned $6.8 billion through 20 movies.

Should Aquaman perform as well stateside as it has been doing overseas, the DCEU could eclipse the franchise totals of Sony's James Bond franchise ($2.11b) and Warner Brothers' Lord of the Rings franchise ($1.8b).

Wan seems to have a successful movie on his hands, a sigh of relief after the director turned down The Flash in order to direct the first solo film to feature Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa).

"I felt the Flash had been done before," Wan said. "It had been on TV twice at that point. The one that had not been done was Aquaman. I realized, wow, his character resides in this crazy, big world, and I could do something very interesting with it. I look up to people like Spielberg, Cameron, Lucas, John Carpenter. I'm a fan of genre filmmaking, naturally."

"So I thought I could make "Aquaman" a genre film, meaning a horror monster movie. DC basically said, yes, you can make Aquaman versus sea monsters if that's what you want."

Will you be seeing Aquaman when it debuts this coming week? how much do you think it will eventually make at the domestic box office? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Aquaman swims into theaters December 21, 2018. Other DCEU films with scheduled release dates include Shazam! on April 5, 2019 and Wonder Woman 2 on June 5, 2020.