What about Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom? Is it Wednesday? Is it Friday? The DC sequel will now launch on Friday, December 22nd instead of December 20th this year. Be aware that Warners knows what they’re doing here: They made Aquaman the highest-grossing DC movie of all time in 2018 with $1.15 billion. This film opened with previews on Saturday and Wednesday and, after an official opening on a Friday (December 21), grossed over $105 million at the domestic BO through Christmas Day, which fell on a Tuesday this year. What they do here with the immediate shift is to capture something even more disgusting right before Christmas Monday, when moviegoing is in full swing. It’s a four-day holiday weekend. Aquaman ended its success in the United States with a gross of $335 million.
Meanwhile, the film “Wise Guys,” in which Barry Levinson and Robert De Niro play the gangster twins, is now titled “Alto Knights” and has been pushed back from February 2 next year to November 15, 2024. This too is part of the seismic shift for films due to the ongoing actors’ strike.
On February 2nd, the Matthew Vaughn-directed action film Argylle will be released by Apple Original Films, which Universal is distributing and which will be advertised in theaters as an accompanying trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon. Alto Knights is now moving to a more robust holiday launch phase. Additionally, if this actors’ strike ends, De Niro will be busy promoting Killers of the Flower Moon in the new year. Levinson and De Niro have worked together on previous pictures Wag the Dog, Sleepers, The Wizard of Lies and What Just Happened.