Robert Pattison’s superhero movie The Batman dominated the Irish and UK box office at the weekend - collecting a massive €16.3m since its release on March 4.
According to Warner Bros The Batman, starring Barry Keoghan and Colin Farrell, was released in 709 locations – a record for Warner Bros, topping the 677 of 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald; and 671 of 2019’s Joker.
It also makes it the 10th-widest release of all time in the territory.
With the final figure still to come, the opening weekend took in €16.3M over its three-day session coming in as the third highest of the last two years.
The Batman’s opening is ahead of the first two of Christopher Nolan’s trio – Batman Begins with €5.3M and The Dark Knight with €13.5M– and only slightly behind The Dark Knight Rises’ €17.2M.
It also tops the €15.2M three-day start of 2019’s Joker, giving The Batman the highest opening for a 15-rated title ever in the territory. 2015’s Fifty Shades Of Grey is the only 18-rated title to have opened higher – marginally ahead with a €16.3M first weekend.
“The Batman” collected a mighty $128.5 million from 4,417 North American theatres in its box office debut, marking the best opening weekend of 2022 by a landslide. More impressively, it’s only the second pandemic-era movie to cross the $100 million mark in a single weekend, a feat first achieved by “Spider-Man: No Way Home” and its huge $260 million launch in December.
Burton’s Batman is widely regarded as the beginning of the superhero film box office dominance. It opened to €2.5M, ending on €14.6M – the equivalent to €38.6M in 2021.
The highest-grossing of the four-film series from 1989 to 1997 was 1995’s Batman Forever, for which Joel Schumacher took over directing duties and Val Kilmer played the eponymous antihero. It started with €5.6M, ending on €24.4M.
Christopher Nolan rebooted the franchise with a three-film arc and pushed grosses to even greater heights. Batman Begins made a decent start (opened: E5.3M; closed: E20.1), before 2008’s The Dark Knight broke new ground (opened:€13.5M; closed:€59.6M), as did 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises €17.3M; €68.1million). Both titles are still in the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time in the territory.
Since then, the takings have dipped slightly, with Zack Snyder’s 2016 Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice €17.7million; €44.2M) and appearances in two versions of Justice League not quite matching the Nolan peak.
