Warner Bros.’ superhero pic Aquaman continues to top the holiday box office, where it grossed $17.1 million on Friday for a projected second-weekend gross of $50 million or more.
If that number holds, the tentpole will finish Sunday with a domestic total of $189 million, meaning it could clear $200 million by the end of New Year’s Day. Overseas, Aquaman swam past the $500 million mark on Friday for a worldwide haul approaching $700 million in a needed win for DC’s superhero universe.
Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns, easily holding at No. 2, is gaining ground after a relatively slow first weekend, and is up the most of any film. The musical earned $10.6 million on Friday for a sophomore outing of $30 million, an uptick of 29 percent. Mary Poppins will jump the $100 million mark sometime on Sunday in North America.
Aquaman and Mary Poppins opened last weekend opposite Bumblebee, which grossed $6.2 million on Friday for a projected second outing of $11.8 million, a gain of 24 percent.
Facing tough competition from Aquaman for fanboys, Bumblebee is eying a domestic total of $65 million through Sunday.
Sony’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse follows at No. 3 with a projected $19.4 million.
Warner Bros. and Clint Eastwood’s The Mule rounds out the top five with estimated weekend earnings of $12 million for a domestic cume of $57 million, Eastwood’s best showing in recent years behind Sully and American Sniper.
Warners had triple duty Thursday, when it partnered with Fathom Events for an encore performance of Peter Jackson’s World War I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old in 1,007 theaters. The doc scored a Fathom record with $3.4 million and, including grosses from a previous Fathom event, has earned $5.7 million in the U.S. (They Shall Not Grow Old is already available on DVD in the U.K., where it had a limited theatrical run before airing on the BBC).
Elsewhere, Annapurna and director Adam McKay’s Dick Cheney biopic Vice, starring Christian Bale, is overtaking Holmes & Watson with a projected $8.1 million (both films opened on Christmas Day).
Holmes and Watson may only earn $7.5 million for the weekend after getting ravaged by critics — its current score on Rotten Tomatoes is 7 percent — and audiences, who slapped the Will Ferrell-John C. Reilly comedy with a rare D+ CinemaScore.
Holiday comedy Second Act, starring Jennifer Lopez, is also eying a $7.5 million weekend. Now in its second outing, the STX release is pacing to finish Sunday with a muted domestic cume of $21 million.
Universal and DreamWorks’ Welcome to Marwen remains the biggest dud of the Christmas season. The film is looking at a second-weekend gross of $2.3 million for a total through Sunday of just $7.8 million.