Aquaman director James Wan recently told The New York Times that he had so much creative freedom on his latest movie that if it fails, he has no one to blame but himself. Perhaps it’s telling, however, that the filmmaker only waited until these last few days to make that claim, seeing how Aquaman is now well on its way to being a commercial smash.
A report from Deadline has updated projections on the flick’s domestic performance at the end of this week. According to the new forecast, Wan’s feature is expected to take in between $65 million and $70 million from Friday to Sunday, before grossing a total of at least $120 million over the full five-day holiday weekend.
To put these numbers into context, while last year’s commercially lackluster but bigger-budgeted Justice League raked in a superior $93.8 million in its first three days, its five-day haul was a little lower at $111.9 million.
All in all, it’s not a bad start for Aquaman‘s domestic run, though the movie has already found much success overseas, with the film’s global total so far standing at upwards of $266.4 million. Things have been going especially well for the feature in the all-important China market, with the flick exceeding Justice League’s box office total in the region in just four days.
At this rate, it feels very likely that Warner Bros. will be pushing forward with their sequel plans, and while James Wan isn’t guaranteed to stay on, both Jason Momoa and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II seem more than happy to reprise their roles. In any case, you can find out if Aquaman deserves its success when the film hits theaters on December 21st.