James Wan's Aquaman has now officially earned more than Justice League at the worldwide box office. Last year, Warner Bros. and DC took a massive hit when the team-up film proved to be a critical and commercial disappointment. Marred by negative buzz and poor reviews, Justice League disastrously ended up being the franchise's lowest-grossing installment, bringing in only $657.9 million worldwide for its entire run. That development led to major changes behind the scenes at WB, and the series is now looking for a fresh start with both Henry Cavill and Ben Affleck seemingly out.
Simply put, the franchise was in dire need of a hit, meaning there was a ton of pressure on Aquaman as it opened in theaters earlier this month. Fortunately, Wan completed the film smoothly and generally positive word-of-mouth only stood to further boost its box office prospects. Despite facing high-profile competition during its opening weekend and scoring the DCEU's lowest domestic debut, Aquaman has revitalized the property with a strong performance - particularly overseas. And it's continued to rise up the charts.
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Per Box Office Mojo, Aquaman's global total has surpassed that of Justice League. As of this writing, Wan's film is up to $666.1 million and will only continue to rise from there. It's well on its way to crossing the $1 billion plateau, a feat no other DCEU installment has accomplished.
WB has yet to officially green light an Aquaman sequel or lock in Wan to call the shots on one, but it's surely only a matter of time before that happens. The studio's already reportedly had internal discussions about a followup, and star Jason Momoa has pitched his own ideas to executives. Everyone involved is definitely interested in seeing Arthur Curry's big screen adventures continue, but WB likely wanted to see how the first Aquaman performed before making any decisions. Now that they know it's a bona fide smash, they can confidently move forward on another movie - one that should make good on the tease in Aquaman's post-credits scene. The situation is similar to Sony's handling of Venom, which broke box office records back in October.
Looking beyond the Aquaman sub-franchise, this turn of events is obviously great news for the DCEU as a whole. They now have two cornerstone heroes they can build around moving forward (Wonder Woman is the other), which is a solid foundation that'll excite moviegoers. Hopefully, upcoming projects like Shazam and Birds of Prey will maintain the forward momentum in the next couple of years, further bolstering DC's stable of hit films. They may have lost the current iterations of Superman and Batman, but all's not lost.
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Source: Box Office Mojo
