If you were thinking, "wow, it's way to early to be getting any sort of new information about Aquaman 2," then you'd be right. The movie isn't scheduled for release until 2022, and nothing is really happening with it yet, but that didn't stop the Warner Bros. YouTube page from dropping something this morning that it claimed was a trailer for the forth coming sequel. Needless to say, it was not.
Rather than being a promotion for a project coming in several years, it's actually a promo for one coming in just a few days. Shazam! is DC's next major release and the movie hits theaters at the end of the week. "The Kid Shall Reign" actually has a nice ring to it.
While Aquaman wasn't exactly the most dark and serious of the recent DC films, this little joke promo does show how the universe is shifting into an apparently more fun and light-hearted tone. Aquaman was one of the less serious members of the Justice League, but compared to Shazam, Aquaman has all the angst of your average Batman.
Of course, one area where Shazam! would like to be able to be compared to Aquaman for sure is in the realm of box office receipts. Aquaman became the highest grossing global hit for the DC universe so far, which, to be sure, was something of a surprise for a character that has largely been viewed as one of the Justice League's punchlines up until now. Shazam! isn't expected to do quite that well, but then, Aquaman wasn't either. The fact is that, because of the wider audience that Shazam! is likely to attract, it's very possible that the movie could do incredibly well by selling tickets to kids who might not have been allowed to go see something like Aquaman.
Shazam! is also doing much better with critics than Aquman did, which might help bring in a segment of the audience that avoided the king of the ocean because they heard the movie wasn't necessarily all that great.
Having said that, box office projections for the film have actually been shrinking slightly. The film was looking to do something around $50 million domestically on opening weekend but that number has now slid back into the $45 million range. Although, if international audiences pick up the baton for this one it could still become a massive hit even if it doesn't overwhelm the North American audience. That's ultimately what happened with Aquaman, while that movie did a quite impressive $334 million domestically, it was the over $800 million that was brought in overseas that made the movie the phenomenon that it was.
We still have a few years to wait before we see a trailer for Aquaman 2 but our next dive into the DC universe movies will be here much sooner when Shazam! arrives this week.
