Will 'The Batman' Be the Year's Biggest Movie?

The latest reboot of an immortal superhero franchise, The Batman, opens this weekend, and it's likely to be a hit. The question is how much of a hit it will be in a year that has so far failed to produce any new hit movies. The only truly successful release in the last few months has been Spider-Man: No Way Home, and it released in December 2021. But The Batman could change the fortunes of the 2022 box office. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

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).

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.