Aquaman’s phenomenal run at the box office continues, with Arthur Curry’s solo debut now passing the $700 million mark overseas and edging ever closing to $1 billion at the global box office.
As of yesterday, Deadline reports an international total of $702.9 million for the DCEU’s latest release, while the picture’s worldwide gross sits at $971.5 million. At this rate, it’s expected that James Wan’s film will reach ten figures in global gross by before Sunday. When it does so, the movie will be only the third DC flick to hit the $1 billion mark, following on from The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and is even on course to surpass the former.
As it stands, Aquaman is already the third highest-grossing release of 2018 overseas and the fifth highest-grossing worldwide, not to mention the highest-grossing DC movie ever outside of North America, beating the international figure of The Dark Knight Rises over the weekend.
Much of the film’s $971.5 million global total comes from China, where the feature’s $284.9 million haul makes it the No. 2 superhero flick of all time, trailing only Avengers: Infinity War. After that, the biggest offshore markets are rounded out by Korea ($36.5 million), Brazil ($30.1 million), Mexico ($27.4 million) and the UK ($24 million).
With all this international success, it feels like a minor hitch that the film isn’t faring quite so well domestically, with Aquaman currently ranking lower than every DCEU entry save for Justice League at the US and Canada box office. In any case, it’s clear that Warner Bros. has more than enough reason to push forward with their sequel plans, but before we find out what’s next for Arthur Curry, we’ll be seeing how the cinematic universe follows on from this success when Shazam! hits theaters on April 5th, 2019.