Aquaman 2 Overtakes The Marvels at the Domestic Box Office

DC and Marvel head into 2024 with the same New Year's resolutions: right the ships of their respective superhero cinematic universes. With Wonka winning the New Year's box office, DC's Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom added another $26.33 million over the four-day holiday weekend to bring its estimated domestic total to $84.67 million. That's enough to swim past Marvel Studios' The Marvels, which has earned $84.48 million since opening on November 10, but not enough to make a splash in a year marred by a string of comic book movies from both DC and Marvel that underperformed at the box office.

Warner Bros. and Disney each end their fourth quarters with disappointing numbers for their superhero sequels to billion-dollar blockbusters: 2018's Aquaman remains DC's highest-grossing movie with $1.15 billion globally ($335 million domestic), while Captain Marvel soared to $1.31 billion worldwide ($426 million domestic) in 2019.

Aquaman 2's current worldwide haul is at $251 million worldwide and will soon overtake The Flash — which ended its global run with $266 million over the summer — and is on track to surpass the combined worldwide totals of Shazam! Fury of the Gods ($132m) and Blue Beetle ($128m). If the Aquaman sequel can leg it out to $400 million, that will be the DC Extended Universe's best box office showing since the Dwayne Johnson-starring Black Adam struck $390 million globally in October of last year.

Earlier in December, Disney stopped reporting international/global grosses on The Marvels after just four weeks in theaters. The Captain Marvel sequel currently sits at $199 million worldwide — making it the lowest-grossing movie in the 15-year history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's also the only Marvel Studios movie to fail to earn more than $100 million at the domestic box office.

The new DC Studios slate has dated Joker: Folie à Deux (October 4, 2024), James Gunn's Superman: Legacy (July 11, 2025), and The Batman Part II (October 3, 2025). The upcoming Marvel Studios slate includes Deadpool 3 (July 26, 2024), Captain America: Brave New World (February 14, 2025), Fantastic Four (May 2, 2025), Thunderbolts (July 25, 2025), Blade (November 7, 2025), Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (May 1, 2026), and Avengers: Secret Wars (May 7, 2027).