“Aquaman” easily retained its reign in North American for the second weekend in a row, dominating box office charts with $51.5 million from 4,125 locations.
That marks a decline of just 24% from its opening weekend of $72 million and brings the DC superhero tentpole past $188 million in the states. Since it’s a busy time of year for moviegoing, “Aquaman” will likely cross $200 million by New Year’s and could become Warner Bros.’ biggest film of 2018. Overseas, the tentpole directed by James Wan and starring Jason Momoa has surpassed $560 million.
There was enough holiday cheer at multiplexes to spread the wealth. Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns” held the No. 2 spot with $28 million, a solid uptick of 28% to take ticket sales just shy of $100 million. Globally, the musical has amassed $173 million.
Paramount’s “Bumblebee” landed in third place again, picking up $21 million from 3,550 venues, a small 3% drop. The “Transformers” origin story with Hailee Steinfeld has made $67 million through Sunday.
Meanwhile, a pair of Christmas Day releases — “Vice” and “Holmes and Watson” — are neck in neck for sixth place. The former, Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic, generated $7.8 million for a domestic haul of $17.7 million. That’s a middling result for a movie that cost Annapurna $60 million to produce before accounting for marketing costs. The latter, “Holmes and Watson,” a comedy starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, brought in $7.3 million during the three-day stretch and $19.8 million since Tuesday. The good news, for the absurd comedy at least, is its Rotten Tomatoes score has jumped from 0% to a 9%. The bad news is Columbia Pictures shelled out $42 million to make the absurd take on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
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Not falling far behind is STX’s and Jennifer Lopez’s “Second Act.” The romantic comedy also saw a gain this weekend, up 11% with $7.2 million for a domestic cume of $21.7 million.
A number of holdovers rounded out the top five. Sony’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” nabbed fourth place, amassing $18 million in its third week of release. The latest big-screen adaptation of Marvel’s web-slinging hero, which has received high praise from critics and fans alike, just crossed the $100 million mark in North America.
Fifth place went to Warner Bros.’ “The Mule” with $11.7 million from 2,787 theaters for a domestic tally of $60 million. Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the drama, which saw a 24% hike this weekend.
Revenues in North America dropped 5.2% compared to the same weekend in 2017, according to Comscore, though that’s because last year benefitted from the release of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” Even so, the domestic market is up almost 7% from last year and over 4% from 2016’s record bounty. As of this weekend, ticket sales have surpassed $11.8 billion.
More to come…