'Aquaman' Crosses $1 Billion & Passes 'The Dark Knight' As It Approaches True DC Dominance

There’s good news and bad news with this weekend’s box office results. First, the good news – we can finally talk about a film other than “Aquaman” at the top of the domestic box office. But the bad news is that even though “The Upside” beat the fish man superhero film, it wasn’t by much and “Aquaman” still managed to take the headline due to a very major milestone.

That being said, Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston has done something that no other film has been able to do since Christmas – beat Jason “My Man!” Momoa at the box office. “The Upside,” which is Hart and Cranston’s feel-good film about an ex-con and a quadriplegic that learn valuable life lessons and yada-yada-yada, scored the #1 spot at this weekend’s domestic box office with a three-day total of $19.6 million.

There are couple things of note about this opening for “The Upside.” A film that many thought could be released late in the fall, as a potential awards contender, was rightfully held until January, as the box office shows. Due to the lack of much new competition, it’s clear that audiences were ready to have something different at the multiplex, and Kevin Hart is a household name at this point. These factors helped “The Upside” land an “A” CinemaScore, which means word-of-mouth should be pretty strong. STX Entertainment clearly knew “The Upside” wasn’t an Oscar player and worked hard to make the film as four-quadrant as possible, encouraging director Neil Burger to make it PG-13 versus the original R-rating. Sure, critics didn’t enjoy the film nearly as much as audiences, but STX has an early 2019 hit on its hands, so it’s likely the studio couldn’t care less about the 40% Rotten Tomatoes score.

So, now that we have “The Upside” out of the way, let’s get to the big story this weekend (and the last 4 weekends) – “Aquaman.” Yet again, the film that just won’t stop continues to rack up great totals on its way to an impressive box office total. This weekend, the superhero epic scored another $17.3 million domestically, good for a #2 showing. However, the big news is that “Aquaman” has become the first DCEU film ever to break $1 billion worldwide, with a grand total of $1.02 billion. And perhaps even more impressive, James Wan’s film has passed Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” ($1.005 billion) for the #2 spot overall for DC films worldwide. Next on its way to becoming the biggest DC superhero film of all time is Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises,” which earned $1.085 billion worldwide. We can fully expect “Aquaman” to reach that milestone in the coming weeks.

Again, while the film has earned an incredible $288 million domestically, “Aquaman” is perhaps even more impressive in China, where its earned another $288 million. As for the all-time rank in China, “Aquaman” has earned enough to become the 4th highest-grossing foreign film in the Middle Kingdom, behind “Avengers: Infinity War” and the last two ‘Fast and Furious’ films. As much as we might make fun of the fish man movie, there’s no denying that it has become a global phenomenon and eclipsed even the highest expectations that Warner Bros. had for the film.

However, as we move forward into 2019 and the future of the DCEU films, we should caution against considering “Aquaman” the new standard-bearer for the DC superhero franchise. There’s little-to-no chance that “Shazam!” will have the same sort of impact in April, as that film faces steep competition (“Hellboy” and “Avengers: Endgame”) and doesn’t have the buzz that “Aquaman” had coming into its release. That being said, it’ll be interesting to note any extra goodwill that “Shazam!” earns thanks to the success of “Aquaman.”

Outside of the debut of “The Upside” and the dominance of “Aquaman,” this weekend did have some other box office stories of note. First, the debut of “A Dog’s Way Home” did decidedly decent, with an $11.3 million opening. With the massive ad-spending that went into the $18 million-budgeted family feature, Sony was probably hoping for something more in the high-teens. The CinemaScore of “A-” doesn’t spell doom, but also doesn’t lead anyone to believe that “A Dog’s Way Home” is going to have incredible word-of-mouth either.

Keanu Reeves also had a new film in theaters this weekend, with his sci-fi drama “Replicas” surprisingly landing in over 2,300 locations. But with terrible reviews, a total lack of buzz, and little-to-no advertising, “Replicas” became the worst debut ever for Reeves, only earning $2.5 million and falling out of the top 10.

As for the limited release fare, this weekend saw the number of theaters increase for some of the Golden Globe winners like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “The Wife.” For the Freddy Mercury biopic, the increase of 254 additional theaters led to a $3.2 million weekend, on its way to knocking on the door of $200 million domestically. “The Wife,” which earned Glenn Close a surprise Golden Globe for Best Actress, expanded to a total of 156 theaters, for a Per-Theater-Average of $752. Yep, not even a surprise win and emotional speech were enough to really get audiences to go see the film.

Next weekend will finally give us something other than “Aquaman” to talk about, with the debut of “Glass.” With analysts predicting anywhere from $55 million to $70 million, M. Night Shyamalan is about to have a massive hit on his hands. The only question now is how high the lo-fi superhero film will go. We shall find out next week.

Here’s the entire top 10 for January 11 to January 13:
1. The Upside – $19.6M (Debut)
2. Aquaman – $17.3M ($288M Overall)
3. A Dog’s Way Home – $11.3M (Debut)
4. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – $9M ($148M)
5. Escape Room – $8.9M ($32.4M)
6. Mary Poppins Returns – $7.2M ($151M)
7. Bumblebee – $6.8M ($108M)
8. On the Basis of Sex – $6.2M ($10.6M)
9. The Mule – $5.5M ($90.5M)
10. Vice – $3.3M ($36M)