He may be the guardian of the ocean, but it seems like Aquaman won't be able to protect Warner Bros. from the ocean of debt his new movie looks to leave in its wake.
"Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" opened to abysmal box office, bringing in even less than the modest $30 million estimates analysts had made for it going into the weekend.
The $28.1 million it made over the three-day weekend ranks it among the worst openings for a film in the D.C. extended universe of films, which includes box office smashes like "Man of Steel," "Wonder Woman," and the first "Aquaman."
Through Christmas day the movie is expected to bring in around $40 million, but that is peanuts against a reported $215 million budget, which doesn't include marketing costs.
The movie was savaged by critics, and audience polling shows the public to be pretty unenthusiastic about it as well. Its underperformance across the board is surprising given the positive reaction to the first one, and that film's final worldwide gross resting comfortably above $1 billion.
Overseas "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" pulled in about $80 million, so by the time the four-day Christmas weekend is through it should have about $120 million to its name.
This marks the latest in a string of failures for films adapted from D.C. Comics, including "Shazam: Fury of the Gods," "The Flash" and "Blue Beetle." It also comes at a time when all superhero movies, with the notable exceptions of "Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3" and Spider-Man: Across the Spider Verse," seem to be underperforming.
It isn't all bad news for Warner Bros., though. They also have the number two film this weekend.
"Wonka" opened a week ago to solid reviews and word of mouth, and cost substantially less than the studio's latest superhero folly.
The movie dropped nearly 55% from last weekend, good for $17.7 million. It has made just over $75 million in North America so far and fared even better overseas, where it has made more than $171 million.
The movie will have made nearly $255 million globally by the end of Christmas, sparking conversations about when a "Wonka 2" might be ready for audiences to unwrap.
In third place, people failed to flock to the latest animated offering from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment, "Migration."
The movie, about a family of ducks, opened to so-so reviews from critics, but audiences were kinder. Still, with a gross of just $12.3 million over three days, and just north of $17 million projected for the four-day weekend, the filmmakers probably wish those kind audiences were bigger.
Internationally "Migration" brought in close to $22 million for a global total of $39 million by the end of Christmas.
Coming in fourth, the romantic comedy "Anyone but You" seems to have sparked little chemistry with ticket buyers.
The movie, loosely inspired by Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as two people who hate each other but have to pretend to be a couple when they both attend a destination wedding.
Critics and audiences alike were indifferent. The movie made $6.2 million over three days and is expected to have pulled in around $9 million after four. It has not yet opened overseas.
In fifth place, "Salaar," an Indian Telugu language action film, performed very well, opening on a fraction of the screens of any other movie in the top five, just over 800 compared to between three and four thousand for every other top five film.
Over three days "Salaar" pulled in about $5.5 million, and it is expected to expand that gross to $6.3 million on Christmas. International receipts for "Salaar" are not yet available.
Here are your top ten movies at the weekend box office:
1. "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" ($28.1 million)
2. "Wonka" ($17.7 million)
3. "Migration" ($12.3 million)
4. "Anyone but You" ($6.2 million)
5. "Salaar" ($5.5 million)
6. "The Iron Claw" ($5 million)
7. "The Boy and the Heron" ($3.154 million)
8. "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" ($3.150 million)
9. "Godzilla Minus One" ($2.7 million)
10. "Poor Things" ($2.1 million)
