The Batman is having an impressive box office run, but making $1 billion might be out of the question for the movie. Ten years after his last solo movie, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman is finally back for an adventure not part of any shared universe. After Ben Affleck tackled the hero in the crossover films Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League, director Matt Reeves brought the hero back to his origins in a film focused on Batman's detective side.
The Batman tells the story of the masked vigilante's second year in Gotham City. While it avoids famous tropes of an origin story, The Batman features an inexperienced Bruce Wayne who is still learning from his mistakes. Robert Pattinson played a younger, angrier version of Batman, and delivered a performance that could define the character for years to come.
As a point-of-view-driven movie nearly three hours long and with no connection to a larger universe, many believed that The Batman would have a hard time at the box office. At a time when films are struggling to draw audiences back to movie theaters, the impression was created that only spectacle movies full of characters are capable of making solid numbers at the box office. After Spider-Man: No Way Home’s astonishing success even for the pre-pandemic era, this perception became even more common.
The Batman opened with $134M at the domestic box office. For comparison, The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight opened with $160M and $155M respectively. Considering international earnings, Matt Reeve's Batman movie had an opening weekend (Friday to Sunday) of $258.2M. This was the second-best domestic opening for a film since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, only behind No Way Home. The Spider-Man multiversal film opened with $600.8M to finish its run with $1.8 billion.
As of now, The Batman has made $238.5M domestic and $224.7M overseas for a total of $463.2M worldwide. That already outgross the box office totals of DC Films' last four theatrical releases, two of which had to face the height of the pandemic and the same-day release on HBO Max. For comparison, DC's previous movie, The Suicide Squad, was released on HBO Max the same day as it opened in theaters and made $167.4M worldwide. The Batman did not have a same-day release on HBO Max and is expected to arrive on the streaming platform in the second week of April.
After a series of box office struggles over the past two years, The Batman is the first solid hit for DC movies and Warner Bros in general. The studio's top-grossing film since March 2020 had been Godzilla vs Kong, which claimed $467.9 at the worldwide box office. After two years in which all Warner Bros. films were released the same day on HBO Max, The Batman marked a return to the theatrical release-only model, and the film's results give the studio assurance that the movie-going experience is still going strong.
Despite an opening weekend that falls short behind Nolan's last two Batman films, The Batman is doing exceptionally well considering the world is grappling with the effects of the pandemic. Even though No Way Home had a box office absurd enough to come close to Avengers: Infinity War, The Batman reviews cannot make the mistake of using the Spider-Man movie as a reference. No Way Home benefited not only from being part of the MCU, a franchise much more established than the DC Films, but also by featuring something that until a year ago audiences could not even imagine watching.
Just the rumors alone that Tobey Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's Spider-Men would join Tom Holland's to take on villains from previous Spider-Man films was enough to generate anticipation comparable to those of the last two Avengers movies. The Batman, on the other hand, is a completely standalone film and yet another reboot of the caped crusader. Even without any extra appeal other than the fact that it's a Batman movie, The Batman is having a box office performance that other DCEU movies and Hollywood releases can only dream of at this moment.
The Batman is also showing off some impressive holds. The film only dropped 50.7% in its second weekend, something that prevents a phenomenon similar to what happened with Batman v Superman from repeating itself. The crossover film opened with $420M globally but quickly melted away from poor reception by audiences to end with $872.7M. Matt Reeves's movie, on the other hand, has received an A- from audiences on CinemaScore, and its word of mouth seems to be strong enough to keep The Batman's box office steady until the end of its run.
While it's not possible to rule out that The Batman breaks the $1 billion barrier, it's very unlikely that Matt Reeves' film will reach that milestone. Although it's displaying great holds as mentioned, The Batman's opening weekend was slightly below other recent billion-plus movies like No Way Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Captain Marvel. The exception, in this case, would be Joker, which opened with $243M globally and still managed to reach a billion. However, Todd Philipps' film cannot be taken as a rule, as its holds over the weeks are difficult to replicate.
Another fact that weighs against The Batman is that DC films, except for Aquaman, don't generally perform as well in China. It took just four days for the Jason Momoa movie to outgross every DC film in the country, which means The Batman will have no easy task once it opens in China on March 18th. In addition, China currently undergoing new lockdowns due to the resurgence of covid cases. It is also important to note that The Batman will be available on HBO Max on March 19th, 45 days after its release in the United States. That is a relatively small release window, something that will prevent The Batman's theatrical run from going a bit further. For comparison, there was a 90-day window between the release of No Way Home in theaters and on VOD.
Even if it doesn't break the billion barrier, The Batman is already a win for DC and Warner Bros. The film is further proof that the movie-going experience can endure, and that the much-vaunted superhero fatigue is still far from becoming reality. With a solid box office run to back it up, The Batman has everything it needs to kick-start a new caped crusader franchise.
