The holiday season has been second only to the summer when it comes to major film releases. Last year we saw Avatar: the Way of Water became a massive smash, but before that, we saw several years of hits like Disney’s string of Star Wars movies and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which also joined the billion-dollar club. However, this December is looking quite different than previous ones, as it appears theater owners are not expecting Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, the movie that would likely be seen as this year’s major franchise smash, to do as well as those that came before.
The first Aquaman made a billion dollars at the global box office, making it the most successful of the modern DC movies, but a Variety report claims that theater owners are not expecting the sequel to follow suit. The last few DC movies, The Flash, Blue Beetle, and the sequel to Shazam! failed to catch on, so there seems to be a feeling it will suffer a similar fate. At the moment Aquaman 2 is tracking for an opening weekend about half of what the first movie did, so this checks out. And if that happens there is a worry the entire season could be lost.
