Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Tops Christmas Box Office With $40 Million

The final film in the DC Extended Universe came to an end this weekend with the release of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and while its opening-weekend numbers aren’t as high as previous entries in the franchise, it still wins the holiday weekend with opening estimates of $40 million. Despite winning the weekend, this is still a major drop compared to the opening of the original Aquaman back in 2018, which took in roughly $68 million in its opening three-day weekend. This is only the latest underwhelming performance at the box office for DC this year, as Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Flash, and Blue Beetle also fell below expectations in their opening weekends.

While the latest Aquaman might have come in below expectations, it still took home the top spot this weekend up against the animated Migration and the romantic comedy Anyone But You, as well as the family-friendly Wonka, which opened earlier in the month. Also impacting Aquaman‘s opening is that both Ferrari and The Color Purple landed in theaters Christmas day, so with heading out to the theater being a tradition among many families, there’s no shortage of options if moviegoers are looking for an experience that isn’t based on comic books. 

Jason Momoa debuted as Aquaman in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which set the stage for the long-awaited Justice League team-up in 2017. By the time Momoa got to headline his own standalone adventure, expectations were quite low for how the character could translate to a feature film, though it would prove to be a resounding success, taking in $1.15 billion worldwide. 

Even though this new sequel similarly had low expectations, Lost Kingdom faces a different set of challenges.

The first Aquaman might have come after the major Justice League team-up, but fans were still quite excited about what superhero movies and the DC franchise could pull off, and in the five years since that first film’s release, virtually every comic book movie in 2023 has underwhelmed. Not only have the aforementioned DC movies struggled, but so did major releases from Marvel, such as Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels. In addition to the original movie earning much better critical reactions, fans already know that there is new leadership at DC that are looking to the future, with Lost Kingdom bringing to an end the shared universe that kicked off in 2013 with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. Momoa might not be done with the franchise, but this iteration of Arthur Curry seems to have concluded.

In Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, which arrived in theaters on December 22nd, when an ancient power is unleashed, Aquaman must forge an uneasy alliance with an unlikely ally to protect Atlantis, and the world, from irreversible devastation. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom will see the return of Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Patrick Wilson as Orm, Amber Heard as Mera, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Black Manta, and Randall Park as Stephen Shin. Jani Zhao will play new character Stingray, Indya Moore will play Karshon, and Vincent Regan will play Atlan, who was previously portrayed by Graham McTavish in Aquaman.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is directed by James Wan, with a script from David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. Producers include Wan and DC Studios co-CEO Peter Safran.

Are you surprised by these numbers? Let us know in the comments!