Ben Affleck must have made some deal with the acting gods in his youth, as he’s shown a rare ability to maintain an A-list Hollywood status for decades. That’s despite being hit by one career misfortune after another ⏤ Daredevil, Gigli, Justice League ⏤ and yet audiences still love him. 3ks5v

Case in point: a slick action-thriller from Affleck’s back catalog is shooting down the competition on Netflix, just as a movie set in a universe he used to lead — one that snubbed a cameo from him, no less — fails to swim to the top elsewhere on streaming. In other words, Benny boy got the last laugh in the end.

The ant crunches numbers on Netflix as Aquaman 2 can’t crack gold on Max 256w65

As per Flix Patrol, The ant is currently the most popular movie on Netflix in the United States. If you haven’t seen the movie from director Gavin O’Connor before, it stars Affleck as an autistic ant who secretly launders money for the most dangerous criminals in the world, and whose operation is threatened when Anna Kendrick’s character notices irregularities in the books.

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It’s fortuitous that The ant is performing so well on Netflix, as the 2016 thriller was just announced to be getting a belated sequel. Amazon Studios is working with Affleck on the follow-up, in which he’ll reprise his role as Christian Wolff alongside co-stars Jon Bernthal, J.K. Simmons (does that man never sleep?!), and Cynthia Addai-Robinson. Kendrick is too busy making A Simple Favor 2 to re the party.

It’s also kind of cathartic for Affleck fans for his movie to be sailing so high on streaming just as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom stalls at number two on Max, where it’s been for a few days now, unable to dislodge Wonka from the number one slot. Aquaman 2 was once due to feature a cameo from Affleck as Bruce Wayne, but he was ultimately booted from the theatrical cut due to the ever-confusing continuity reboot that’s going on at DC right now.

Because of that, Affleck’s final outing as the Dark Knight seems doomed to be 2023’s execrable exercise in IP soup that was The Flash (the same goes for Michael Keaton and George Clooney as well, for shame). The Lost Kingdom did Affleck dirty, then, but at least he’s getting his own back on streaming. Never underestimate a Batman.

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Barbie proved to be unstoppable at the box office last year, but it turns out she can be superseded on streaming. And don’t tell Alexandra Shipp’s Writer Barbie, but one of the films triumphing over it is a spinoff of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

The other two happen to star near-miss Ken Timothée Chalamet, the Warner Bros. It Boy himself, who’s just signed a lucrative first-look deal to keep him at the studio. And who can blame the company for shelling out the big bucks (specific figures have not been revealed, but you can bet it’s bigger than Ken’s ego) when Dune: Part Two is earning universal acclaim and exceeding $575.5 million globally.

Multiply the Chalamet Charm by a double dose of Jason Momoa and you apparently have a formula for streaming success.

Only the combined forces of Timothée Chalamet and Jason Momoa can put Barbie back in her box 625x4k

As per FlixPatrol, the typically totemic Barbie is no longer in the top three most-watched movies on Max right now, with the gold, silver, and bronze positions on the worldwide charts being claimed by Wonka, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, and Dune.

Those three movies cover all three sections of the Chalamet/Momoa Venn diagram. Wonka is a Timmy C vehicle, the Aquaman sequel naturally brings back Momoa as the king of the sea, and Dune features Chalamet as sand messiah Paul Atreides, with Momoa in the ing role of Duncan Idaho (not the actor’s favorite character name, FYI).

We’re expecting Momoa to return for a cameo in the Dune franchise one of these days, but it seems the pair are inadvertently reuniting sooner than expected for this streaming stratagem to show Barbie who’s boss. Both actors are two of WB’s go-to stars, so clearly the studio needs to cast the pair in some kind of oddball buddy-cop movie and audiences would go gaga for it.

Or, you know, if Jake Gyllenhaal’s imagined Batman needs a Nightwing to help battle Momoa’s Lobo, Chalamet is right there. Send us an email, David Zaslav, and we’ll talk.

Don’t count out the King of Atlantis. December 2023 saw Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom arrive to muted audience reactions and harsh reviews, and yet the sequel from under the sea has quietly refused to sink down to the depths.

As the final entry in the old-school DCEU, aka the SnyderVerse, prior to James Gunn’s incoming DCU reboot, Aquaman 2 seemed doomed to close off the 10-year-old franchise in poor health. However, while there’s zero chance of James Wan’s follow-up managing to match the $1.15 billion gross of its 2018 predecessor, The Lost Kindom isn’t so much a lost cause as was expected. Its latest unexpected box office achievement has even seen it outdo the total of an infamous DC flop from 2022.

Four weeks into its theatrical run, Aquaman 2 has earned itself $396.2 million worldwide, as per Deadline. This means that the film has now sured the figure amassed by Black Adam once it had exited cinemas — $393.5 million. While Lost Kingdom still can’t be called an unqualified success, the fact that it will safely cross the $400m mark with a budget of around $210 million while Black Adam couldn’t do that when costs skyrocketed to upwards of $260 million is yet another blow for The Rock’s failed franchise-starter.

Jason Momoa and Aquaman probably have a DCU future, unlike Dwayne Johnson j5o70

One of the first things Gunn (and producing partner Peter Safran) did when they took control of DC was to cut ties with Johnson, who briefly looked to become a new creative head of the universe himself. Unfortunately, even The Rock’s clout wasn’t enough to protect him after Black Adam underperformed to such an extent, proving that audiences perhaps just weren’t all that interested in this corner of DC.

On the other hand, while Aquaman 2 hasn’t set multiplexes alight in the same way as the original, clearly movie-goers still have some residual affection for the character of Arthur Curry and for his film’s inventive and vibrant visuals and mythology. It’s no surprise, then, that Momoa looks set to return to the DCU in some way, although smart money’s on him being recast as Lobo and not reprising Aquaman.

Even so, as we’re getting new versions of Superman and Batman as well, Gunn would be wise not to keep the Atlantean monarch off movie screens for too long. Kudos to Aquaman 2 for reminding us that though the DC kingdom might’ve had a few bumps in the road recently, it’s definitely not lost for good.

How’s that famous The Dark Knight quote go? “You either a die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain.” Well, that might turn out to be eerily prophetic about the future of Marvel and DC if a rumored Kang casting comes about.

Speaking of Marvel and DC, the never-ending war between the kings of comic books wages on, but the MCU’s Distinguished Competition slipped in a surprising victory as the battle of 2023 drew to a close…

Aquaman 2 earning 120% of The Marvels‘ total earning in just two weeks is the MCU’s 2023 in a nutshell 5u446z

Who’d have thunk it? What with the downfall of the DCEU and all the Amber Heard drama, if you’d asked folks what they thought would be the biggest superhero movie bomb of 2023 last January they probably would’ve said Aquaman 2. And yet, against all the odds, the Jason Momoa stinker of a sequel has managed to swim past the total box office gross of The Marvels with ease. It’s just over two weeks into its theatrical run and it’s already earned $250 million worldwide, as opposed to the Brie Larson’s flick’s paltry $199 million cume. Marvel might suddenly be glad DC won’t be releasing another film until July 2025’s Superman: Legacy.

Rumor has it, Marvel could find Jonathan Majors’ replacement as Kang in DC’s latest Batman actor 59t63

Take this with a fistful of salt, but the latest rumors on Marvel’s quest to find a new big bad for the Multiverse Saga, in the face of Jonathan Majors’ firing, indicate that they might be sticking with Kang after all and simply recasting the part. And the alleged top choice for the rebooted role is winning over fans in their legions: it’s Fear the Walking Dead‘s Colman Domingo. Funnily enough, the Emmy and Tony Award-winning star was just recently cast in his first ever superhero part — he’s voicing Batman in Spotify’s The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark podcast. At 20 years Majors’ senior, Domingo’s casting would also skirt the pesky canon issues with recasting the character. Basically, if Marvel isn’t taking this route already, it should start.

Does What If…?‘s season 2 ending tell us when and where God Loki will return? 3m626l

There’s a lot to unpack in that final scene of What If…?‘s season 2 finale, which managed to cap Marvel’s 2023 on a higher note than The Marvels. Are the Watcher and Captain Carter going to team up to right wrongs across the multiverse? Is Peggy going to form her own Exiles team? And, most importantly, does that final shot of Yggdrasil from Loki‘s own season 2 finale suggest that God Loki will return after all, specifically in What If…? season 3? As less than ideal as things may be for the MCU right now, don’t forget that Marvel’s multiverse is becoming bigger and more intricate all the time.

The DCEU might’ve died a watery death with Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, expiring just 10 years into its existence whereas the 15-year-old MCU shows no signs of stopping, but the final entry in the franchise has just gained a major win over Marvel Studios’ The Marvels.

Over its second weekend in theaters, the Jason Momoa sequel managed to easily surf past the $200 million mark at the global box office. Meanwhile, The Marvels — which went down in history as the lowest-grossing MCU movie of all time last November — brought home a mere $199 million during its entire theatrical run across a four-week period. In other words, The Lost Kingdom just earned 100% of The Marvels‘ gross at 2x the speed.

It didn’t always look like it was going to end this way. Aquaman 2 initially opened to a weaker performance with its Thursday night previews than The Marvels, which indicated the Brie Larson bomb might escape one more embarrassment. Unfortunately, while the DC film didn’t have a mega-successful opening, it enjoyed a drop-off into its second weekend of just 29%. That gives it the second biggest holdover in earnings of any DCEU movie. The number one slot, interestingly, belongs to 2018’s Aquaman.

The Marvels, on the other hand, hemorrhaged ticket sales week by week. While both origins films crossed the $1 billion mark, then, Aquaman possibly just has that bit more pop culture popularity than Captain Marvel. Or else the Christmas season, which lacked a huge hitter like Avatar 2 or Spider-Man: No Way Home, gave it a bit of extra boost. Whatever the reason, the inescapable truth is that the DCEU’s demise hasn’t been as embarrassing as it could’ve been while Marvel’s survival in its current state is looking more and more sketchy.

The good news is that Marvel is destined to win the battle of 2024 over DC, whatever happens. Ahead of James Gunn’s shiny new DCU kicking off with Superman: Legacy in summer 2025, DC is taking a year off, while Marvel has just one movie on its slate — this May’s Deadpool 3. Who will win the war long-term, though, remains to be seen.

In the best proof there is that, whatever happens, the MCU will keep on turning, just days after Jonathan Majors’ removal from the franchise as Kang, Marvel is already unleashing its latest offering in the form of What If…? season 2.

Meanwhile, although the MCU is indomitable, its old rival the DCEU is finally calling it a day with the release of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, ahead of James Gunn’s DCU reboot. But, true to form, its already losing a box office battle with Marvel…

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom faces worse opening weekend than The Marvels 2e9n

Well, how else was 2023 going to end but with one last superhero movie bomb? Yes, surprising no one whatsoever, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is failing to make a splash with festive audiences. What is a little shocking, though, is that it’s proving even more disastrous than The Marvels — you know, the lowest-grossing MCU film of all time. With a projected opening weekend gross of just $40+ million, it’s likely to fall short of The Marvels‘s mere $46 million. It’s already fallen short on its Thursday previews — earning just $4.5 million to The Marvels $6.6. million.

Failing to score a win over the MCU even with an open goal. DCEU, don’t ever change. Oh, wait, you’re dead, so you can’t.

What if…? season 2 kicks off by assassinating a powerful character played by an A-lister… no, not Kang 4r313h

What If…? season 2 is set to be a daily festive treat for Marvel fans across the globe this yuletide with all nine episodes dropping one after the other over Christmas week. Episode 1, set in a universe where Nebula has ed the Nova Corps, maybe wasn’t the show’s finest hour yet, but it was an entertaining Blade Runner riff. Although the fact that it brought back Glenn Close’s Nova Prime for the first time since 2014 a) sans Glenn Close and then b) only to do the character dirty isn’t going down too well. Close, but no cigar, Marvel.

Black Panther 3 rumors lead to the reopening of the controversial #RecastTChalla campaign 3d5j2t

The Black Panther franchise is in a strange place right now, as we just got the announcement of the Eyes of Wakanda animated series but we still don’t have an official update on Black Panther 3. The latest rumors, however, are claiming that Marvel is desperate to get such a much-anticipated threequel going, apparently alongside Doctor Strange 3, in order to lift up the MCU’s broken spirits. Don’t put too much stock in this yet, then, but this rumor is enough to set off those who are determined for Marvel to recast T’Challa as they don’t like Shuri as Black Panther.

As ever, the legendary Chadwick Boseman getting replaced seems like a long shot, but recent events have certainly taught us that you can never predict what’s coming next in the MCU. ‘Nuff said.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

When it comes to measuring up to Marvel, the DCEU — now officially defunct, with the release of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom — was always damned if it did, damned if it didn’t.

While its early offerings from Zack Snyder were criticized for veering from Marvel’s metric, serving up grimy moodiness instead of crowd-pleasing banter, those that came later were thrown under the bus for striving to emulate the MCU too closely and coming up short.

In its final ever scene, however, the DCEU drops a twist that may seem like a low-key ending for the 10-year franchise as a whole but actually quietly rewrites its relationship to Marvel, and reveals that the DCEU has been a dark mirror to the MCU all along.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom‘s final scene, explained 453rs

After defeating Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and making peace with his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) achieves his lifelong goal — by which I mean it was mentioned once at the beginning of the film — to unite the worlds of the land and the sea by announcing the existence of Atlantis to the rest of the planet.

Speaking at a press conference, the king of the oceans introduces himself and his kingdom and appeals to the people of both worlds to put aside their prejudices and come together. To emphasize this point, Arthur explains how he is a child of the land and the sea, a lighthouse keeper’s son and the King of Atlantis. His final line? “I am Aquaman,” he tells the crowd, before the film ends as “Born To Be Wild” starts to play on the soundtrack.

Any Marvel fans watching must feel some acute déjà vu at this scene, and not just because the whole “hidden nation reveals itself” concept is a ripoff of the end of Black Panther. A superhero announcing themselves as “I am [insert made-up name here]” at a press conference as a classic rock song kicks in? With this moment, both its own finale and that of the entire DCEU, Aquaman 2 is evoking the iconic last scene of Marvel’s Iron Man.

Whether intentional or not, this moment draws a direct line between the death of the DCEU and the birth of the MCU. While one franchise spawned from this scene another says farewell with it. With this, the DCEU seems to be itting that, yes, of course it was chasing Marvel’s coattails this whole time, but what actually ended up happening is that it’s become — to use DC terminology — the Bizarro version of the MCU.

If you’ll recall, Superman villain Bizarro is the reverse of Kal-El in every respect; mean where Superman is kind, dumb where Superman is smart, and he even talks backwards. Likewise, the DCEU was poorly received whereas the MCU has (largely) been beloved. Haphazard where the MCU was (largely) well-planned. And, crucially, ultimately short-lived while the MCU appears never-ending.

Ironically, DC’s next iteration, a whole new continuity called the DCU, will be headed up by a former Marvel filmmaker in James Gunn, but it seems that he will be looking to carve out his own path that runs parallel rather than backwards from the MCU. In Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom‘s final scene, however, the dead and buried DCEU walks up to that podium and finally its the truth about its identity.

Like Harvey Dent, the DCEU is a franchise with two faces. On the one side, it brought us Wonder Woman, The Suicide Squad (and Peacemaker), Birds of Prey… On the other, it also gave us the Martha moment, Jared Leto’s Joker, and Henry Cavill’s Justice League lips.

2023 has been a terrible year for superhero movies all round, but while Marvel Studios has many more years ahead to wash the stain off its cinematic universe, this is it for the DCEU, soon to be rebooted with James Gunn’s shiny new DCU. So it really was all up to Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom to determine which side of itself the DCEU would show us as it disappeared beneath the waves of cinema history. Unfortunately, it’s not the pretty side.

the events of the first Aquaman? What do you mean, no? There’s only been… five years, a bazillion superhero films, and a whole pandemic since its release. Well, don’t worry, you won’t struggle to keep up as there’s hardly anything in Aquaman 2 that you haven’t seen before if you are even a casual consumer of comic book cinema. Much like Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Lost Kingdom massively drops the ball on expanding the fresh, fleshed-out corner of this universe established in the first film.

The plot, such as it is, sees new dad/king of Atlantis Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) forced to team up with his formerly evil brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) to stop Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who’s been possessed by a malevolent macguffin called the Black Trident, from destroying the world by unleashing an ancient evil from the arctic. Add in Arthur pushing for Atlantis to reveal its existence to the world and you have a story Frankenstein-ed together from the likes of Thor: The Dark World, Black Panther, and DC’s own Black Adam.

Sure, the original Aquaman wasn’t exactly innovative, but director James Wan brought a vibrancy and an energy to proceedings that helped make up for its shortcomings. Here, however, whether because everyone involved knew they were working on a dying franchise or otherwise, there’s a serious lack of enthusiasm and ion on display. The world-building, a highlight of the last film, falls short and there’s a fatal lack of comic book-y fun. For example, Topo the drum-playing octopus returns… but he never gets to play the drums. I want my money back, James.

But while Topo didn’t beat any drums in the sequel, I’m afraid I have to beat one we’ve all heard too much of late: Aquaman 2 is yet another superhero movie that suffers from eye-wincing VFX. The floaty-haired weirdness of the Atlanteans was a problem in the first one too, but it was offset by the depiction of Atlantis as a colorful underwater Wakanda. With the action mostly kept away from the kingdom this time around, we’re saddled with various dark deep-sea caves and dingy submarine interiors. For whatever reason, Wan’s typically bursting imagination and eye for visual flair deserted him here.

Whether leading man Jason Momoa is on form or not seems to be up for debate, as fans can’t decide if his laid-back, swaggering performance here is a mark of the actor being so comfortable in his role at this point that he’s bringing the character closer to him or a sign that he’s merely phoning it in, perhaps already eager to don the Lobo makeup for James Gunn. What is certain is that Abdul-Mateen fills Manta with as much intense, ruthless hatred as he can, which helps sell the villain’s one-note personality as a character flaw, not a writing one. Patrick Wilson is likewise as dependable as ever as Orm, although his brotherly chemistry with Momoa is let down by lame dialog.

Those who picked up on the supreme lack of Amber Heard in the trailers (i.e. everyone) may be surprised to note that Heard as Mera, Arthur’s wife, queen, and baby momma, is in the film much more than expected, showing up for around 20 minutes of screentime, which includes several moments where she gets to save her husband. Mera has no discernible arc, but it seems the marketing department is really to blame for sidelining Heard and Wan actually used the actress as much as he could amid all the behind-the-scenes drama.

In a year that also brought us Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom probably isn’t the most egregious superhero movie mess of the year, and yet — dare I say it — I actually found myself longing for anything as boldly off-the-wall and borderline self-parodic as Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K — we do get a post-credits scene so banal that it almost comes back around from disappointing to become an avante-garde deconstruction of the form, but it doesn’t quite manage it. I would’ve gladly accepted anything to liven up this final shrug from a franchise that is apparently all too ready to surrender itself to the ever-churning waters of studio politics.

So, that was the DCEU. As someone who has actually enjoyed much of this 10-year oddity — I mean odyssey, The Lost Kingdom makes it abundantly clear that this is the right time to end it. Bring on the DCU, both the franchise we deserve and the one we need right now.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is finally here and with it the conclusion of the story that began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel a decade ago. It’s safe to say it’s been a bumpy ride for the DCEU, with highlights like Zack Snyder’s Justice League and Wonder Woman counterbalanced by truly awful movies like Wonder Woman 1984 and The Flash.

James Gunn’s rebooted DCU is on the way, but as Jason Momoa’s Arthur Curry takes an awkward bow and shuffles off stage, it’s time to look at the very final moments of not just the movie, but the entire DCEU project.

Naturally, spoilers follow, but not for the core plot of the movie.

The credits scene 683x64

This brief comedic scene shows Patrick Wilson’s Orm experiencing surface food, continuing a story element about Arthur showing off the surface world to him, along with a practical joke that cockroaches are considered a delicacy.

This gag is resolved in the credits in a scene in which Orm once again tries human food, beginning with a cheeseburger. But he still doesn’t quite have the knack of surface life and, when he spots a cockroach he adds it to his burger and chows down.

And that, as far as we know, puts a bow on the entire DCEU. Yup, the final moment of the cinematic universe that once had ambitions to take down the MCU is Patrick Wilson munching on a cockroach.

Perhaps this is symbolic of something, but we’re not sure what. Either way, there are no teases of what might be next for Aquaman and friends, and it currently seems unlikely they’re going to make it into Gunn’s DCU. That’s a wrap!

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is now in theaters.

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. Please proceed with caution.

The adventures of DC’s King of Atlantis continue, then abruptly stop forever, in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. It’s been a long, wet road, but the good times couldn’t last forever.

That said, could they last for a little bit longer? Just for a few more seconds, at the tail end of the movie, as a special treat for being good and sitting through the credits and finding out who Amber Heard’s hair wrangler was?

Does Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom have a post-credits scene, and what future DCEU stories might it set up? The news, unlike reviews for the movie itself, isn’t totally bad.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom: Post-credits scene or nah? 5j2o1t

Alright, fish heads. (Is that what Aquaman fans call themselves? Are there enough Aquaman fans that they need a name for the fandom? There must be, right? The last movie made a billion dollars. We’re getting off track.) Yes, Aquaman 2 has a post-credits scene? There’s a more interesting question to ask, though: Why does Aquaman 2 have a post-credits scene? 

In the scene in question, Orm, AKA Ocean Master ⏤ Arthur Curry’s half-brother and unlikely buddy cop in the film ⏤ puts a bug on a burger. Then he eats the burger. With this golden-age-of-Nickelodeon moment of gross-out payoff from a very silly setup earlier in the film, the movie ends. 

More than that, though, the franchise ends. The entire DCEU, from the Codex 2013’s Man of Steel to the godless CGI from 2023’s The Flash to this, the shared universe’s final entry, concludes ⏤ not with a bang, but with the guy from that Gerard Butler Phantom of the Opera movie eating a hamburger with ucky, yucky bugs on it. 11 years ago, at the end of Avengers, when the post-credits scene did a sendup of self-important, hyper-dramatic post-credits scenes by having the team awkwardly eat meat wraps in silence while people cleaned up behind them? This is sort of like that, only unintentional, and with a bug, and more than a decade late, and also it’s the cap on a $6 billion roller coaster of a franchise. 

In conclusion, maybe movies are just bad now. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom hits theaters Dec. 22.

It’s been five years since Aquaman last graced movie theater screens, thrashing expectations of what kind of business a movie about damp people could do without being made by James Cameron.

With that dynamite success in our minds, one question lingers: Can Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom be as financially successful as its predecessor?

The curt but straightforward answer: probably not. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is unlikely to make more at the box office than Aquaman did, but then again, neither will most movies (more on that in a moment). At present, Variety estimates that the sequel might ⏤ might ⏤ clear $40 million over its four-day opening weekend, putting box office projections somewhere below The Marvels but above CATS. There are many reasons why this may be the case, so let’s peruse a few right meow.

Why must Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom fail, papa? 39p1p

Consider all of the factors that made Aquaman a success story back in 2018. The long-suffering DCEU was still shaking off the jitters from the cinematic rat king that was Justice League. While the loudest corner of the internet screamed into each other’s open mouths about how the Snyder Cut would save us all, quieter folks were eager to see Jason Momoa focused in with a more singular lens. Early reviews for Aquaman, which was marketed as a fresh beginning for the franchise, sold fans on what was allegedly the most Marvel-y DC movie to date.

And here we are, just five years later, looking back at the high-water mark ⏤ the place where Warner Bros. made waves, then rolled back. Jason Momoa is still charming, but audiences aren’t tripping over themselves to see him chuckle hairily anymore ⏤ at least not the way that Universal was probably hoping they would when they added him as the high-profile star of Fast X only for the movie to pull in a little over half of what The Fate of the Furious made six years earlier. What’s more, being “so much more like a Marvel movie” isn’t the compliment that it used to be. These days, it mostly just means that a flick doesn’t have enough Robert Downey Jr. to be fun. 

Aquaman 2 and the ever-lurking threat of franchise death 2e2m47

Most importantly, where 2018’s Aquaman was designed to be a fresh start for a franchise with infinite potential, Aquaman 2 is the opposite: an undesigned end. It’s the last entry in the DCEU era of blockbusters, not thanks to careful planning and a tapestry of storytelling, but because everything almost always went wrong. The shared universe that started with 2013’s Man of Steel was a gordian knot of aesthetics, tones, and character interpretations. If the MCU leading up to Endgame was a Rube Goldberg device, carefully designed to lead from A to B to C ⏤ or, at least, to look like that’s what it was doing ⏤ then the DCEU was a Pachinko machine: countless indistinguishable balls of story bouncing off each other, consequence-free, before disappearing into the pit at the back of the audience’s memory.

When the credits roll on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the machine gets unceremoniously unplugged. No fanfare, no lead-in to the next chapter of the story, just narrative entropy. For all of our collective complaints about the endless treill of comic book movies, it’s hard to get audiences excited by promising them nothing.

All of this ignores a monumentally important detail: That it would be bananas if Lost Kingdom beat Aquaman’s box office take. It would be wild if any DC movie did, or if most unrelated movies did, for that matter. In a post-pandemic world, where crowded rooms are still uncomfortable and tentpole movies are almost guaranteed to hit the streaming services that you’re already paying for within a month or two, the money that Aquaman made is borderline unheard of. It was the DCEU’s highest-grossing picture across its 10-year history. On a $160 million budget, it became the first film in the franchise to cross the $1 billion mark. The Flash did a quarter of what Aquaman did, numbers-wise. Black Adam did about a third. 

The unfortunate prognosis of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom 356625

Without the fervor of Zack Snyder’s fandom, or even the postmodern irony that turned the Morbius re-release into what might have been the first case of an entire film studio being cyberbullied, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom doesn’t have a base to play to. Without the promise that it’s building to something new, it scans as a narrative dead end. It’s been pointed out by smarter people that superhero movies don’t feel special anymore and it’s difficult to think of a better example of that phenomenon than this: The vestigial mass of story hanging off of a dead franchise, desperately hoping that crowds will show up for the angry-eyed swimmy guy from half a decade ago putting on a rubber skin suit that’s a different color than last time.

But if it helps, Jason Momoa might be Lobo now. So at least that’s something we can all look forward to.

2023 has been one typical year, with surefire hits crashing and burning without a care while unexpected and often predicted failures lighting up the box office. The ending of this year could have ended on a similar note, if not for Warner Bros. Pictures.

Ever since 2021 confirmed the previously lofty rumors of a Wonka film with Timothée Chalamet playing the titular role, film gurus and many cinema analysis experts had been adamantly foretelling a bleak future for the prequel — a “companion piece” to the original, Gene Wilder-version in Chalamet’s opinion, predicting abysmal box office earnings for the third adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

But at the time of writing, Wonka has not only wooed the critics, but also charmed the box office. The $125 million budget musical fantasy has debuted with $39 million and its worldwide box office total currently stands at $151.4 million. At this rate, the Chalamet’s quirky chocolatier has all the chances of remaining in the top rank and probably cinching the winning position in of earnings as the holiday season rolls in. Right?

Uh, no. Warner Bros. Pictures has ensured that the answer isn’t that simple and Wonka doesn’t find it easy to navigate the box office pitfalls.

Why? Because the releases primed to give the film competition — as evidently Universal and Illumination’s animated feature Migration wasn’t enough — are WB titles The Color Purple and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. While the former, because of its literary overtones and theme, is going to bring in a selective crowd, the DC sequel is expected to be WB’s big hit of the year amid all the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp controversy.

Whether the Jason Momoa feature manages to hit the target at the box office or ends up tying a soaking bow on the actor’s run as Arthur Curry, the film’s release poses Wonka the risk of stealing or at least distracting its momentum at the box office. What if Wonka is only ruling the box office at the moment because there is no worthy contender in sight?

Wonka vs The Color Purple vs Aquaman 2 isn’t going to be another Barbenheimer, but this is a tussle WB could have easily avoided. But either it didn’t believe adapting the eccentric entrepreneur would win them dollars or the studio is overly confident in its belief that it can conquer the box office on all fronts.

Wonka is currently in theaters, while The Lost Kingdom drops in on Dec. 22, 2023, followed by The Color Purple on Dec. 25.