AceShowbiz - While actor Mark Wahlberg is increasingly focused on streaming projects like Play Dirty and the upcoming The Family Plan 2, there was a period when he was a consistent force at the theatrical box office. Half a decade before their Netflix hit Spenser Confidential, Wahlberg and director Peter Berg forged a robust creative partnership, delivering a string of big-screen successes including Deepwater Horizon, Patriots Day, and Mile 22. This powerful collaboration began with the gripping war film Lone Survivor, which recently saw its global box office total surpassed by a critically acclaimed war drama of a very different caliber.

That film is One Battle After Another, directed by the visionary Paul Thomas Anderson and starring Leonardo DiCaprio alongside Chase Infiniti. This Oscar-contender has already achieved significant financial success, grossing approximately $60 million domestically and over $160 million worldwide. Not only has it comfortably recovered its reported production budget of $140 million, but One Battle After Another has also outpaced DiCaprio's previous release, Martin Scorsese’s epic crime saga Killers of the Flower Moon, at the global box office.

This past weekend, One Battle After Another officially overtook the $155 million lifetime global haul of Lone Survivor. Released in 2013 to largely positive reviews, Lone Survivor marked a strong start for the Wahlberg-Berg partnership. Interestingly, DiCaprio and Wahlberg previously shared the screen in Scorsese's Best Picture-winning gangster film, The Departed, a testament to their shared history in acclaimed cinema.

Based on a harrowing real-life Navy SEAL operation during the Afghanistan War, Lone Survivor featured strong supporting performances from Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, and Taylor Kitsch. Kitsch, who recently headlined the Prime Video series The Terminal List: Dark Wolf, also worked with Berg on last year's hit Western miniseries American Primeval. Like that show, Lone Survivor opened to favorable reviews, currently holding a "certified fresh" 75% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. The critics' consensus praised it as, "A true account of military courage and survival, Lone Survivor wields enough visceral power to mitigate its heavy-handed jingoism."

While Lone Survivor garnered two Oscar nominations in the sound categories, One Battle After Another is poised for even greater awards season glory. It is already considered a front-runner for the coveted Best Picture honor at the upcoming Academy Awards, potentially facing strong competition from Chloé Zhao's Hamnet. This ambitious project marks Anderson's most expensive film to date, and also his most successful, having now grossed more than double the earnings of his celebrated There Will Be Blood. With a stellar 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes, One Battle After Another continues its impressive run in theaters, further solidifying its critical and commercial triumph.