‘The Batman’ Reboot To Become One Of The Biggest Pandemic Hits
2022 has gotten off to a mixed start at the box office, with only a few doubles and triples (Scream, Jackass Forever, and Uncharted) and nothing that has hit it out of the park. No new release this year has crossed $100 million at the box office (though Uncharted should hit that number in its third week), nor has there been a single weekend where the total box office of all films exceeded $100 million. Rather than the new titles, the major box office story of the year thus far is the continued exemplary performance of Spider-Man: No Way Home, which remains in the top three in its 11th week. This weekend, there is another superhero mega-franchise stepping into the ring, and the reboot of the Batman franchise should take the box office from a thawing winter to a blooming spring.
Opening in 4,300 locations, The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and his vigilante alter ego, making him the sixth actor to portray the Caped Crusader since the Warner Bros. franchise took off in 1989. The Matt Reeves-directed film takes the series into an even darker and more norish crime world than before as Batman is on the pursuit of The Riddler (played by Paul Dano). Other iconic Batman characters joining the fold include Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), Alfred (Andy Serkis), The Penguin (Colin Farrell), crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and police commissioner James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). It should be noted that The Batman is theatrical exclusive, the first for WB since finishing their experiment with releasing their 2021 slate on HBO Max the same day (the film will hit the streaming service after 45 days).
While the latest iteration of Batman, as played by Ben Affleck, was seen as a disappointment after the beloved Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale trilogy, the new series appears to be off to a strong start. The Batman’s 86% on Rotten Tomatoes is behind The Dark Knight (94%), but it is right in line with the two other Nolan films and far ahead of the Affleck/Snyder installments Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (29%) and Justice League (40%, though the director’s cut fared much better with 71%). It is the planned start of a new trilogy, with multiple spinoff series in the works at HBO Max.
Expectations are high for The Batman, which should become the second biggest opener since 2019, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home’s colossal $260 million opening but above the $90 million opening of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with a $100+ million gross being likely. We haven’t had a solo Batman film since The Dark Knight Rises, which opened to $161 million (just a few million ahead of The Dark Knight), and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice surpassed that with its $166 million opening, making it the biggest opening of the franchise. (Those three films are so close in their opening numbers that they are the 17th, 18th, and 19th highest openers of all time).
The Batman is not expected to hit those franchise highs. DCEU Batman films had diminishing returns, with Batman v Superman having an overall gross over $100 million smaller than TDKR despite opening slightly higher, and Justice League opening to under $100 million. Still, there is no doubting that the Batman brand is still strong, and Joker’s massive success indicated that audiences are open to see the series go in a less conventional direction. That grim, R-rated vision of Gotham crossed the billion dollar line worldwide, becoming the highest grossing R-rated film of all time and the second highest Batman-related film, falling short of TDKR by just $7 million. The Batman may not capture the same zeitgeist, but Joker’s success suggests that rebooting Batman as a dark (albeit PG-13), three-hour detective story with no connections to earlier films is not necessarily a deal-breaker with audiences.
The global rollout started Tuesday and most major markets will get to see the film this weekend (though as with many other films, the release in Russia has been put on hold due to the conflict in Ukraine). Unlike the winter’s web-slinging superhero behemoth, on March 18 The Batman will be getting a release in China, where Batman v Superman and Justice League both grossed around $100 million. The Japanese release is on March 11, and Hong Kong is the 19th.
Other than The Batman, there’s not much else going on at the box office this weekend… or even for most of March. No wide releases are slated for next weekend, and the following weekend has a few small titles going wide. It isn’t until March 25th that we have another major release to challenge The Batman. Paramount’s Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock starrer The Lost City may be the film to knock the superhero film off the number one spot, but The Batman should have three weeks of box office dominance. While it is standard for films to move out of the way from the major tentpoles, the lack of counter-programming is unusual, though it may be beneficial to February’s titles such as Uncharted and Dog]/link] that are still in play.
Even if The Batman is a mammoth hit, the lack of new content shows that there is still a ways to go for the industry to recover. For comparison’s sake, March 2019 (which was the last “normal” March) had Captain Marvel (opened to $153 million), Us (opened to $71 million), Dumbo (opened to $46 million),A Madea Family Funeral (opened to $27 million), and two other films that opened between $10-20 million. This March may only have two films open above $10 million, after four in February. While mega-grosses from superhero movies are certainly welcome, the industry would benefit from more mid-range successes as well.
Opening in 4,300 locations, The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and his vigilante alter ego, making him the sixth actor to portray the Caped Crusader since the Warner Bros. franchise took off in 1989. The Matt Reeves-directed film takes the series into an even darker and more norish crime world than before as Batman is on the pursuit of The Riddler (played by Paul Dano). Other iconic Batman characters joining the fold include Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), Alfred (Andy Serkis), The Penguin (Colin Farrell), crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), and police commissioner James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright). It should be noted that The Batman is theatrical exclusive, the first for WB since finishing their experiment with releasing their 2021 slate on HBO Max the same day (the film will hit the streaming service after 45 days).
While the latest iteration of Batman, as played by Ben Affleck, was seen as a disappointment after the beloved Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale trilogy, the new series appears to be off to a strong start. The Batman’s 86% on Rotten Tomatoes is behind The Dark Knight (94%), but it is right in line with the two other Nolan films and far ahead of the Affleck/Snyder installments Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (29%) and Justice League (40%, though the director’s cut fared much better with 71%). It is the planned start of a new trilogy, with multiple spinoff series in the works at HBO Max.
Expectations are high for The Batman, which should become the second biggest opener since 2019, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home’s colossal $260 million opening but above the $90 million opening of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with a $100+ million gross being likely. We haven’t had a solo Batman film since The Dark Knight Rises, which opened to $161 million (just a few million ahead of The Dark Knight), and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice surpassed that with its $166 million opening, making it the biggest opening of the franchise. (Those three films are so close in their opening numbers that they are the 17th, 18th, and 19th highest openers of all time).
The Batman is not expected to hit those franchise highs. DCEU Batman films had diminishing returns, with Batman v Superman having an overall gross over $100 million smaller than TDKR despite opening slightly higher, and Justice League opening to under $100 million. Still, there is no doubting that the Batman brand is still strong, and Joker’s massive success indicated that audiences are open to see the series go in a less conventional direction. That grim, R-rated vision of Gotham crossed the billion dollar line worldwide, becoming the highest grossing R-rated film of all time and the second highest Batman-related film, falling short of TDKR by just $7 million. The Batman may not capture the same zeitgeist, but Joker’s success suggests that rebooting Batman as a dark (albeit PG-13), three-hour detective story with no connections to earlier films is not necessarily a deal-breaker with audiences.
The global rollout started Tuesday and most major markets will get to see the film this weekend (though as with many other films, the release in Russia has been put on hold due to the conflict in Ukraine). Unlike the winter’s web-slinging superhero behemoth, on March 18 The Batman will be getting a release in China, where Batman v Superman and Justice League both grossed around $100 million. The Japanese release is on March 11, and Hong Kong is the 19th.
Other than The Batman, there’s not much else going on at the box office this weekend… or even for most of March. No wide releases are slated for next weekend, and the following weekend has a few small titles going wide. It isn’t until March 25th that we have another major release to challenge The Batman. Paramount’s Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock starrer The Lost City may be the film to knock the superhero film off the number one spot, but The Batman should have three weeks of box office dominance. While it is standard for films to move out of the way from the major tentpoles, the lack of counter-programming is unusual, though it may be beneficial to February’s titles such as Uncharted and Dog]/link] that are still in play.
Even if The Batman is a mammoth hit, the lack of new content shows that there is still a ways to go for the industry to recover. For comparison’s sake, March 2019 (which was the last “normal” March) had Captain Marvel (opened to $153 million), Us (opened to $71 million), Dumbo (opened to $46 million),A Madea Family Funeral (opened to $27 million), and two other films that opened between $10-20 million. This March may only have two films open above $10 million, after four in February. While mega-grosses from superhero movies are certainly welcome, the industry would benefit from more mid-range successes as well.
