As reported last week, James Wan's Aquaman was already mighty at the worldwide box office. Now it's finally opened in the US too, comfortably seeing off competition from rivals Bumblebee and Mary Poppins Returns.
Jason Momoa's Atlantean superhero has so far brought in $72.1m in the States across between weekend grosses and preview screenings – predicted to sail nonchalantly past $100m by Christmas Day. That places it ninth in the top 10 December openings of all time. It's actually the worst US opening for a DC Universe movie to date, but all but Justice League of those were spring or summer tentpoles, so it's no cause for concern. And neither, of course, is its worldwide box office total, which now already stands at just shy of half a billion dollars. Aquaman could easily end up the biggest DC movie to date.
The news was also fine, if not spectacular, for the week's other two major new releases, both of which performed pretty much as expected. Disney's Emily Blunt-starring magic nanny sequel Mary Poppins Returns has so far collected $31m in her umbrella domestically, with a worldwide total of $51.3m. And Travis Knight's well-received Transformers spin-off Bumblebee is on $21m domestic and $52.1m worldwide.
All that new action knocked last week's number one, the animated Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, down to fourth place with $16.7m (current worldwide total $129.6m). And Clint Eastwood's The Mule rounded out the top five in its second week, bringing in another $10m.
Sixth was The Grinch ($8.2m); seventh was Jennifer Lopez' new comedy Second Act ($6.5m) ; eighth was Ralph Breaks The Internet ($4.6m).
Ninth place was a disappointing result for Robert Zemeckis and Steve Carell's drama Welcome To Marwen, which only brought in $2.4m. And in tenth place was historical drama Mary Queen Of Scots, with $2.2m.