'The Batman' Has an Impressive Opening Weekend
by EG
Despite featuring a character that has been rebooted in films at least six times in the last three decades, The Batman is still of interest to moviegoers. The latest version of the superhero's often-told early story had a big opening weekend, scoring the second-highest debut-weekend gross of the pandemic era behind Spider-Man: No Way Home. Read on for details.
The Caped Crusader is back.
The Batman — starring Robert Pattinson in his first turn as the brooding crime fighter — flew to a huge $128.5 million in its domestic box office debut to secure the second-best opening of the pandemic era behind 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s also director Matt Reeves’ biggest opening to date, and is only the second picture since December 2019 to cross $100 million in its launch.
Overseas, the $200 million tentpole opened to $120 million from 75 markets for a worldwide start of $248.5 million (more on this later).
The Batman‘s early performance is all the more impressive considering it runs nearly three hours and, as well as being on the darker side. Nor was Reeves’ vision for the superhero a sure bet. It’s safe to say the pic’s strong opening launches a new Batman franchise for Warner Bros. and DC at a critical juncture for legacy Hollywood studios, who are growing ever more reliant on mega-tentpoles and known IP. (Also, Warners is on the brink of having a new owner, Discovery.)
Reeves was the first person Toby Emmerich hired to helm a superhero pic when Emmerich took over as president of Warner Bros. Motion Pictures (Joker and Suicide Squad were already in the works).
“You have to buy into the idea that Batman is like Hamlet. He’s such a rich character. And that the only reason to do it is if you find a different swim lane and a Batman that’s true to the DNA, but is a different interpretation,” Emmerich says. “From the very beginning, Matt consciously made sure that the character and the story he was telling was different than anyone that had been told before.”
The Batman‘s opening cements the supremacy of the superhero genre at a time when many genres are struggling on the big screen. Younger males — who have so far fueled the fragile box office recovery — turned out in force. More than 65 percent of ticket buyers were male, while more than 60 percent of the audience was between ages 18 and 34.
The arrival of the Warner Bros. and DC tentpole couldn’t have come sooner for theater owners following a slow January and February in terms of Hollywood tentpoles.
The PG-13 film centers on Bruce Wayne’s earlier days of fighting crime and is a rogues’ gallery of Batman characters. Paul Dano plays the Riddler, a serial killer pursued by Batman, while Zoë Kravitz plays Catwoman and Colin Farrell appears as the Penguin.
Get the rest of the story at The Hollywood Reporter.