AQUAMAN - a film by James Wan

[Naked Bat]

Spider-verse is beyong amazing. Aquaman is a fun but forgettable entertainment.

[Colossus1980]

All year I was told how Poppins was going to own AM I didn't get it funny how things work out.

Really? Beyond one poster here I've never read about that happening. It was always AM beating the crap out of the lame competition. Not I'm not saying the movies were critically bad, but pretty weak box-office wise. Did people really expect BumbleBee to do damage when it was the 6th Transformers coming off the very weak Last Knight? Same for Spidey after 6 live action movies?

The interest for AM seemed to outstrip the competition according to the YouTube views.

[Jim Kelly]

Since August, all that I've been seeing was predictions that AQUAMAN would lose out to all the other movies that week and that MARY POPPINS was going to be the big winner. But I've led a sheltered life. I've been trying to avoid spoilers for AQUAMAN, so I may have missed any positive predictions for the movie.

[Ramsay Snow]

Yea nooffense to Mask of the Phantasm but Into the spider verse imo is the best animated CBM ever. Which imo that movie held for a long time

I never thought Mask of the Phantasm was all that great. Crisis on Two Earths was better.

[Gaastra]

Really? Beyond one poster here I've never read about that happening. It was always AM beating the crap out of the lame competition. Not I'm not saying the movies were critically bad, but pretty weak box-office wise. Did people really expect BumbleBee to do damage when it was the 6th Transformers coming off the very weak Last Knight?

Aquaman was in the same boat as bumblebee. Coming off some not liked movies. Movie news even said they were pretty much the same and both had to prove themselves. And no, no one knew who was going to win. Aquaman had as much of a chance to win or lose as bumblebee.

[Jim Kelly]

Even now, as a lover of the movie, all I want to do is go on the internet and find other people fanning out over AQUAMAN. That's one of the pleasures of a box office hit for people who love those movies. But when I go on youtube, I have to sift through loads of videos where people try to prove the movie is bad, before I can find any videos that just geek out over the film. I thought part of living in an information bubble was we only got to see things that confirmed our own opinions.

[Immortal Weapon]

Even if I enjoyed a movie I'm always interested to know what someone dislike about it.

[Jim Kelly]

Even if I enjoyed a movie I'm always interested to know what someone dislike about it.

I know what others disliked about the movie. After the twentieth video, where someone repeats the exact same criticisms that all the other videos made, there's nothing to be gained. Am I not allowed one video where someone just unabashedly likes the movie? I'm not that masochistic.

[Jeramas]

Yea nooffense to Mask of the Phantasm but Into the spider verse imo is the best animated CBM ever. Which imo that movie held for a long time

Batman:Under the Redhood is now tied with Into the spider verse for the the best animated CBM ever.

[Bruce Wayne]

Really? Beyond one poster here I've never read about that happening. It was always AM beating the crap out of the lame competition.

Except all the pro-Disney people who were claiming that Aquaman was going to bomb in the wake of Justice League and that MPR was going to make Disney fistfuls of cash because it was a family friendly four quadrant movie. Or that the competition from Spider-Verse, MPR and BB were going to result in the movie underperforming. The people who thought the movie was going to do well were in a distinct minority.

[Osiris-Rex]

Speaking of Aquaman, Aquaman has just swam past Wonder Woman for world wide box office netting $822 million vs $821.8 million for WW, with a current domestic catch of $216 million.
And Aquaman still has most the rest of January in the US and China to fish for more loot. Plus Aquaman has yet to splash down in Japan.

https://variety.com/2019/film/box-of...ay-1203097626/

[Divine Spark]

Aquaman is coming for that ass BvS!

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Aquaman is still tracking ahead of Jumanji, but the lead is narrowing.

Jumanji as of Jan 1 (13 days): $185 million
Aquaman as of Jan 1 (12 days): $216 million

This means Aquaman is ahead by almost 17%.

However, if we were to compare both movies at their 12 day mark rather than their January 1 mark, Aquaman is ahead by almost 28% because Juamnji had only earned $169 million by its Day 12 (Dec 31, 2017).

The next Aquaman vs. Jumanji benchmark will be next Sunday. Jumanji had earned $246 million by that point. Aquaman only needs another $30 million, which shouldn't be difficult. I'm just wondering if it can keep staying ahead of Jumanji.

Geez, all the people who thought Aquaman would "struggle" to get to $200 million domestic and end up in the low-200s like Justice League sure were wrong on that one.

I'm hoping to be wrong on my prediction of $250-300 million total domestic. I thought I was being a cockeyed optimist at the time.

Now, however, $250mm is in the bag and likely $300mm, but I just can't bring myself to think of $400 million as a possibility until we see how much it drops by the end of the Jan 5-7 weekend.

Anyone out there want to have more guts than I do and make a bold prediction on where Aquaman's domestic take will top off? Can Aquaman hit Jumanji's domestic of $404 million?

After all, it's ALREADY beaten Jumanji's lifetime overseas take of $558 million!

[Jim Kelly]

If Arthur has united the seven, doesn't that mean he gets the title of Ocean Master? Is Orm just Orm now--no fancy titles for him? When everybody talks about the Ocean Master, they must be referring to Aquaman now.

You can impose a three act structure on AQUAMAN, like Syd Field advocates for screenplays and what we see with most super-hero movies, but I think it works according to the rules of story telling I learned in high school when we studied THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA--and I guess it goes all the way back to Aristotle. You have exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement.

Many would say the climax is the final battle, but thinking about this I've come to the conclusion that the real climax is in the hidden kingdom with Julie Andrews when Arthur gains the trident. For me that's the emotional catharsis of the movie. The final battle is great and all, with John Rhys-Davies voicing the Brine King, and Patrick Wilson's performance in the trident fight--but that's really the falling action of the movie, because Arthur has found the holy grail before then and we are pretty confident in his victory now. The denouement is of course what happens right after that, where the movie comes full circle.

Brett Culp's review is the kind of video I've been looking for--I just didn't know it. He gives the movie a lot of thought and he comes up with some insights that stand out from the usual sort of reviews. At over 19 minutes, you don't need to watch the whole thing, he gets to the point toward the end, around 13 minutes in. He talks about that scene in the hidden kingdom and what we learn from that. Arthur becomes a hero because he listens to the Karathen. Aquaman's ability that everyone mocks, talking to fish, turns out to be the super-power that the world needs.

[KabutoRyder]

Might see it again this weekend. I know he gets his ass kicked, but damn I love me some Manta. need to see him on the big screen again.