As is often the case with these big-deal tentpole releases, the Fri-Sun grosses were a little higher than estimated. The Sunday estimates were at $128.5 million for The Batman, but the actual figures were $134 million. I’m old enough to remember when The Phantom Menace was estimated to have grossed $60 million over its Fri-Sun portion of the Wed-Sun debut only to end up with $64 million. Likewise Batman Begins ($48 million instead of $44 million), The Dark Knight ($158 million instead of $152 million) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($238 million to $248 million). The film has earned $124 million overseas as well, giving it a solid $258 million global. Sans inflation, that’s essentially tied with the $256.7 million global debut of Spider-Man: Homecoming in summer 2017.
The Robert Pattinson/Zoe Kravitz action drama earned $56.6 million on Friday (counting $21.6 million in Thursday previews), $43.2 million on Saturday (+24% from the pure $35 million Friday) and $34.1 million on Sunday (-21% from Saturday, better than the drops for Joker, Logan, Captain Marvel and Batman v Superman). The 2.37x weekend multiplier is far enough away from Batman v Superman’s 2x ($166 million/$81 million) or Man of Steel ($128 million/$56 million) to temporarily assuage concerns of a similar post-debut free-fall. The Dark Knight earned a 2.36x from a $67 million Friday (and $18 million midnight gross) for a then-record $158 million debut weekend. It legged out to $533 million, second only to Titanic at the time. Offhand, more realistic legs like Logan, Captain Marvel and The Dark Knight Rises gets The Batman to $345-$375 million domestic.
I’ve long argued that $1 billion isn’t the benchmark for success. Recall the deluge of super-successful comic book flicks (Wonder Woman, Thor: Ragnorak, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming) that earned between $821 million and $881 million worldwide in 2017. Japan (March 11) and China (March 18) are wild cards, yet a conventional post-debut descent over the next month from a $258 million global debut would give The Batman anywhere between $800 million and $885 million worldwide. If it plays like Aquaman ($298 million) in China, Wonder Woman in North America ($413 million from a $103.5 million debut) or plays like Frozen in Japan ($267 million), that’s a different conversation. However, there are two huge diametrically opposing factors that are almost entirely unprecedented in terms of The Batman’s post-debut legs.
First, lots of folks know that (barring a change in plans) Warner Bros. will debut The Batman on HBO Max on its 46th day of theatrical release. Many might wait for at-home consumption for a host of reasons (ticket prices, concerns about the length, health concerns or individual consumer preference). There are also folks who will see The Batman in theaters once but won’t sample it multiple times due to the shorter window. I’d like to think WB will act like Sony did with Spider-Man: No Way Home and push back the post-theatrical release as the theatrical legs justified it, but Sony doesn’t have a first-party streaming platform that needs juicing. I’m inclined to presume minimal impact, as it’s not like Sing 2 or A Quiet Place part II dropped dead when they entered at-home arenas, but we’ll see.
The other variable is that The Batman has almost no real competition. With Disney foolishly (or maliciously, I’d argue) sending Pixar’s Turning Red to Disney+ in participating territories, STX indefinitely delaying Operation Fortune (me thinks they were spooked by poor grosses for Death on the Nile) and everyone else giving The Batman breathing room, the DC flick is the only game in town until, at best, Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s The Lost City on March 25 or possibly Sony’s Morbius on April 1. One big reason why Spider-Man: No Way Home is nearing $790 million domestic is because it has faced almost no successful competition, both in terms of studio biggies (Moonfall, Death on the Nile) or Oscar season breakouts (West Side Story, King Richard). Not even Avatar got such an easy ride 12 years ago.
Will one factor will cancel the other out? Which variable will be of most importance over the next month? We’ve frankly never had a mega-ton tentpole which opened amid zero competition yet also had a severely truncated theatrical window. Are we about to find out what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? I can offer an educated guess in relation to the short window being of minimal consequence, as it’s not like No Time to Die dropped dead after day 32 and F9 was the leggiest Fast & Furious sequel since 2 Fast 2 Furious. I might also expect a big second weekend drop followed by a leveling out, just as we saw with Spider-Man: Homecoming ($334 million after a $117 million debut, a 62% drop and a strong 1.61x ten-day-to-final multiplier).
Come what may, The Batman opened bigger than any straight-up clean slate reboot ever. It opened bigger than Batman Begins ($73 million Wed-Sun), Casino Royale ($40 million), Amazing Spider-Man ($137 million over six days), Man of Steel ($128 million) and half-retcons like Star Trek ($79 million) and Superman Returns ($83 million Wed-Sun). The reviews are strong, the multiplier and A- Cinemascore seems to imply that paying moviegoers are liking what they see, and now we wait to see how the shortened theatrical window and the total lack of competition play off of each other. I mean, in normal times, there’d be nothing salutatory about a dark-n-gritty reboot of an already-established comic book superhero franchise opening to big business. But with Hollywood following Wall Street’s streaming delusions off a cliff, every theatrical release is now an underdog.
