Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is set to finally arrive in theaters next month. It is set to be the swan song for the DCEU franchise since it will be their final release before the upcoming DCU reboot under James Gunn and Peter Safran.
While the first film earned more than a billion dollars when it was released five years ago, there have been some questions regarding its box office prospects since the last DCEU releases flopped financially.
It also doesn't help that most comic book movie releases in general this year have also underwhelmed and some pundits have predicted that the trend could continue in the upcoming sequel.
Now, we finally have the early forecast on the film's box office performance and it's not promising at all.
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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Early Box Office Forecast Revealed
According to Box Office Pro, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is currently forecast to earn around $32-42 million at its opening weekend box office and $105-168 million in its overall domestic run.
In comparison, the first film earned $67.9 million ($73.2 million including the early screenings) on its opening weekend. The final domestic box office numbers were around $335 million.
Based on this early projection, it looks like the upcoming DCEU sequel will likely disappoint at the box office as well, continuing the trend of recent comic book movie releases especially in the DCEU front where all of its films this year have flopped.
The forecast could still change in the coming weeks depending on how they'll market the film in its remaining time before the release, but they have a lot of work to do if they want to make it a huge hit like the first film.
The projections are also similar to the recent MCU film The Marvels, which ended up opening at a disappointing $46.1 million and its numbers are also nowhere near its first film which was also a billion-dollar grosser.
There are a lot of factors that you can consider regarding why the numbers are underwhelming whether it's superhero fatigue, the audience's loss of interest in the DC franchise at the moment, or the effectiveness of their marketing campaign so far.
It's interesting to see how it all unfolds in the coming weeks as well as its actual results once it finally arrives in theaters.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is set to release in theaters this December 22.
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