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Aquaman becomes the DCEU's first $1 billion box-office baby

But The Dark Knight Rises is still ahead of it in earnings, coming from before the premiere of 2013's Man of Steel.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
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Gael Cooper
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Aquaman takes the throne.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Aquaman isn't just King of the Seven Seas. As of this weekend, he's King of the Box Office, as his feature film crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide, the first DC Extended Universe feature to hit that milestone. 

The film's international earnings now stand at $1.02 billion, Box Office Mojo reports, as it earned another $17.26 million domestically and $27.9 million internationally over the weekend. It's earned $287.3 million in China alone, the site says.

While Aquaman is the first movie from the unofficially named-DC Extended Universe to earn a billion dollars, it's not the first-ever film from DC Comics to do so. The Dark Knight from 2008 and 2012's The Dark Knight Rises both have topped $1 billion.

The Dark Knight Rises, in fact, is still ahead of Aquaman with earnings of $1.0849 billion. That film came out in 2012, a year before the DC Extended Universe launched in 2013 with Man of Steel. ("Extended Universe" refers to the films made from then on, whose plots and characters share a creative world and sometimes reference each other.)

There's still one more country for Jason Momoa's Aquaman to conquer: The film won't open in Japan until Feb. 8.

In the US, Aquaman fell out of first place at the weekend box office for the first time after four weeks of release, losing the top spot to Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston's new comedy-drama, The Upside.

Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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