It’s been a few weeks now since Aquaman released in theaters and it is no longer up for debate: Aquaman is a smash hit. After a modest (by superhero movie standards) opening weekend of $67.8 million, James Wan’s film has gone on to make over $266.4 million domestically and is racing towards $1 billion with $963.3 million. That makes Aquaman the DCEU’s most successful film to date from a total box office standpoint by a pretty sizable margin. So why, after Justice League sank so spectacularly just a year ago, did Aquaman make such a splash? Aquaman obviously succeeded financially in large part because of its foreign box office, with international sales accounting for over 72% of the film’s haul, according to Box Office Mojo . I’m interested not in the dollars and cents specifically, but the reasons why people were willing to pay them to see this fil...