NEW YORK — The king of Atlantis won the holiday box office by beating out a Transformer and a magical nanny.
“Aquaman,” the latest DC superhero film from Warner Bros., nabbed a $67.4 million three-day weekend in North America. That gives the undersea hero — played by Jason Momoa — the US box office crown for the weekend and adds to the film’s already huge global total.
“Aquaman” has so far made $482.8 million worldwide after opening internationally earlier this month. That includes a whopping $232 million in China, the world’s second largest movie market.
Disney’s “Mary Poppins Returns,” took second place in the weekend box office with a $22.2 million haul. The sequel to the 1964 Disney classic, which stars Emily Blunt as a magical nanny has so far made $51.3 million around the world.
The film pushed Disney’s 2018 domestic box office total past $3 billion, and helped set a domestic box office record for a single studio.
Paramount’s “Bumblebee,” the next installment in the “Transformers,” franchise nabbed $21 million in the United States. The film, which stars Hailee Steinfeld and John Cena, has been a huge hit with critics and is the best reviewed film in the series with a 94% score on review site Rotten Tomatoes.
The big three films this weekend helped keep a strong box office moving along. Hollywood will end the year on a high note next weekend with the box office up 7.5% over last year, according to Comscore.
Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, notes that each film should likely see a continued boost in numbers over the next week thanks to the Christmas holiday.
“The period between Christmas and New Year’s is one of the busiest weeks of the year at the cineplex,” he said. “And all of that should lead to the beginning to a very strong 2019 in theaters.”