Probably not.
Here’s how much the recent DCEU movies have lost:
- Black Adam - $100 Million
- Shazam 2 - $150 Million
- The Flash - $200 Million
Blue Beetle barely managed to break even.
A point to note, is that none of these movies were bad enough to lose such a large amount of money.
For Aquaman 2 to surpass its predecessor it has to collect more than 1.5 Billion which is next to impossible considering the state DC is in.
There are 3 major reasons for this:
1 - DCEU is being rebooted to DCU
What’s the point of watching a comic book movie if the character has no future moving forward?
People who are not among the DC’s loyal fan base will be asking themselves this question and might not be willing to watch this movie.
Besides this, James Gunn has currently given a statement in which he has made it clear that nothing in his DCU will be canon until ‘Creature Commandos’ and ‘Superman Legacy.’
Basically Gunn showed middle finger to every DC movie including Aquaman 2.
The only reason Warner Bros is going ahead with this movie is if they didn’t then they would incur more loss.
What’s better? Losing $305 Million or $150 Million? I would choose the later.
2 - Aquaman 2 went through a lot of reshoots
According to the people who watched the initial drafts of this movie, this movie was boring to a point that they left the screening.
Even after multiple reshoots the problem stayed the same. So when you do watch the movie, I don’t think this part will change.
3 - Poor Marketing Campaign
Even with a strong Marketing campaign like Black Adam, the movie was a flop.
With zero to no marketing the other DCEU movies that came out this year, also incurred loss.
Aquaman 2 is no exception. Although, it has a $100 Million Marketing budget, if James Gunn himself is not willing to market this movie, will people watch it?
Think of it this way, if Tim Cook is not willing to use iPhone, can people be convinced that iPhone is good?
Keeping aside these three factors, for this movie to make profit, it has to be good.
It has to have good plot, character development and a strong villain. The trailer seems to give nothing away currently.
But it will be hard for this movie to surpass the first one.