Aquaman has done the unimaginable. The James Wan directed underwater fantasy superhero adventure has grossed $1 billion at the worldwide box office. The film, despite some competition from Kevin Hart’s The Upside, added $17.26 million domestically and $27.9 million internationally over the weekend, taking its global haul to $1.02 billion mark. This makes it the only movie in the DCEU to accomplish the milestone, and only the third DC Comics movie to achieve the feat besides Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. In fact, it passed The Dark Knight by a hair in global box-office ticket sales; the 2008 Nolan film earned $1.004 billion.
Aquaman has been on a record-breaking spree since its release. After grabbing $100 million over its North American opening weekend, the movie has been inching towards milestones, beating DC movies like Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman in the process, until it eventually surpassed Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice itself. Aquaman has now achieved what a movie featuring Batman and Superman was supposed to, but did not. At this point, a sequel is all but guaranteed; expect Aquaman 2 announcements in the next few weeks.
While this is a great victory for the superhero in general, who has largely been the butt of all jokes thus far, its an even bigger win for its director. Aside from James Cameron, James Wan is now only the second director in Hollywood to have two films from different, entirely unrelated franchises grossing over $1 billion worldwide; his Furious 7 featuring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker and many others (the seventh installment in the long-running Fast and the Furious series of films) made $1.5 billion worldwide. It remains to be seen if Aquaman will reach those heights.
Aquaman stars Jason Momoa as the titular hero, Amber Heard as Mera, Patrick Wilson as Orm, Nicole Kidman as Atlanna, Willem Dafoe as Vulko and Yahya-Abdul Mateen II as Black Manta. The movie is currently playing in theaters in case you haven’t caught it yet. And in case you’re still wondering whether you should, check out our review of the movie.
