Warner Bros. Breaks 2023 Box Office Record Despite Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom’s Numbers

2023 has been an interesting year at the box office with studios like Warner Bros. experiencing some big ups and downs. While Barbie crossed $1 billion to become the highest-grossing film of the year and Warner Bros.’s highest-grossing movie ever, the studios’ DC projects all underperformed. Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle did poorly this year, and now Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is getting a rough turnout during the holidays. This is a big drop for Warner Bros. considering the first Aquaman surpassed $1 billion at the box office. Despite the Aquaman sequel’s numbers, Warner Bros. is actually dominating the box office this week thanks to Wonka and The Color Purple. In fact, the studio just beat a 2023 record. 

Thanks to the holiday weekend, Warner Bros. just became the first studio to claim the top three spots at the domestic box office in 2023 (via IndieWire). The Color Purple made $18.1 million domestically on Christmas Day while the Aquaman sequel made $10.6 million, and Wonka made $10.3 million. Overall, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom has made $126,825,000 after one week in theaters and Wonka has made $272,053,000 worldwide after two weeks in theaters. The Color Purple has only been released domestically and made $25,150,000 in its first week. 

Both Wonka and The Color Purple have been well-received by critics. The Timothée Chalamet film currently has an 83% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes while The Color Purple has an 86% critics score. Meanwhile, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is up on the review site with a “rotten” 35%. 

Will Wonka 2 Happen?

“I would definitely like to do more,” director Paul King recently told Total Film magazine. “And I’d like to spend more time in this world. Dahl was definitely interested in taking Willy Wonka on. There’s drafts that didn’t really go anywhere, and there’s a short story. He didn’t really write sequels, but this was the one book where he clearly felt there was more in the tank there. There’s an awful lot more Wonka story that we have that we would like to tell. It’s not like Dune: Part One where you go, ‘This is what’s happening in Part Two.’ Hopefully, it works exquisitely as a stand-alone movie. But I would definitely like to do more. And I’d like to spend more time in this world, and meet some more Oompa Loompas.

What Warner Bros. Movies Are Releasing in 2024? 

Warner Bros. has many big films scheduled for 2024, including Dune: Part Two, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Twisters, Joker: Folie à Deux, and The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim. The first movie in the rebooted DCU, Superman: Legacy, is not set to be released until 2025.

What movies are you most looking forward to in 2024? Tell us in the comments!