While still having inconsistent success with its movie universe, DC Comics and Warner Bros. are starting to make great strides thanks to the king of Atlantis.
Aquaman is DC’s top-grossing movie based on numbers from Box Office Mojo. According to the site, the movie has surpassed the success of The Dark Knight Rises with its current box office sales reaching $1.09 billion worldwide.
As impressive as that is, Aquaman sits in seventh place of top-grossing superhero movies worldwide (eighth if you include Pixar’s Incredibles 2).
The top six live-action superhero movies worldwide all belong to Marvel including Captain America: Civil War, Iron Man 3, Black Panther and all three Avengers movies.
When compared to top domestic ticket sales, Aquaman still has a ways to go to beat The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises and, with over $700 million in sold tickets, no one is even close to Black Panther, which is also the first superhero movie to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Still, this could signal a positive change to come for future DC movies.
Next up is Shazam which is (finally) taking a cue from Marvel by not taking itself so seriously. Directed by David F. Sandberg, Asher Angel plays the 14-year-old Billy Batson who finds that all he needs to do is shout out the word “Shazam!” and he becomes Zachary Levi fighting off the super-villain Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong).
The film also stars Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Faithe Herman, Grace Fulton, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews.
Shazam hits theaters on April 5, 2019.
In September, the studio will introduce audiences to The Kitchen starring Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish and Elisabeth Moss.
Based on the DC Vertigo comic book series by Ollie Masters and Ming Doyle, The Kitchen is a female-mob driven drama written and directed by Andrea Berloff, who was nominated for an Oscar for her screenplay for Straight Outta Compton.
Set in 1978, three Hell’s Kitchen housewives whose mobster husbands are sent to prison leave them with an Irish ax to grind. The movie also stars Domhnall Gleeson, James Badge Dale, Brian d’Arcy James, Margo Martindale, Common
The Kitchen opens on September 20, 2019.
Then DC goes darker in October with the release of Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, the green-haired baddie.
According to Warner Bros., “Joker centers around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen…Arthur Fleck [is] a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character
Directed, produced and co-written by Todd Phillips, the film also stars Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz, Bill Camp, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Glenn Fleshler, Douglas Hodge, Marc Maron, Josh Pais
Joker will be released on October 4, 2019.
Finally, Gal Gadot comes back next summer in Wonder Woman 1984.
Directed by Patty Jenkins, this superhero story fast forwards to the 1980s with Chris Pine as Steve Trevor still by her side. (How that will be done remains to be seen.)
Also starring in the film is Kristen Wiig as the villain The Cheetah, along with Pedro Pascal. Wonder Woman 1984 opens on June 5, 2020.