Aquaman Conquered the Christmas Box Office
The Justice League may not be dead after all. The 2018 holiday season has been crowded with big releases, Mary Poppins Returns and Bumblebee, the latest installment in the Transformers franchise that refuses to die. Despite all the competition though, it was Aquaman that reigned supreme in the end. Per Variety:
Warner Bros.’ latest comic book adventure generated $22 million on Tuesday for a five-day haul of $105 million. That’s one of the best Christmas Day haul’s sans “Avatar” or a “Star Wars” entry.
That's a big win that Warner Bros. desperately needed, since the last entry in the franchise, Justice League, lost nearly $100 million at the box office.
Aquaman did have at least one concrete edge: With a run time of two hours and 22 minutes, it's 12 minutes longer than the Emily Blunt-led Mary Poppins returns, giving you nearly a quarter of an hour more that people didn't have to talk to their family members on Christmas. So, yes, movies in general are too long these days and it's hard to believe that Aquaman really has two and a half hours of plot in it. But when you think of it in terms of time not spent explaining to your aunt that, no, phrenology isn't real, suddenly that $22 million seems super worth it.
