Matt Reeves’ new action movie The Batman has scored the biggest opening weekend at the box office of any movie in 2022. The new DCEU adjacent movie brought in $248.5 million in its first three days at the global box office, a sum of money that would have even billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne raising an eyebrow.
That wasn’t The Batman’s only achievement, though. The thriller movie also had the biggest opening weekend for Warner Bros since the Joker in 2019 and is the #1 film in 73 of the 74 territories it opened in. In the US alone, The Batman made $128.5 million, which makes it one of only two films since December 2019 to open to over $100 million in the States.
It’s perhaps unsurprising then that this is the largest opening weekend Reeves has ever enjoyed and demonstrates the enduring strength of the theatrical model. During the height of the global pandemic, Warner Bros experimented with a day-and-date for films releasing films on the streaming service HBO Max and in theatres simultaneously. This had mixed results and was blamed for some films underperforming at the box office.
The Batman stars Robert Pattinson as the titular vigilante two years into his war on crime. When a mysterious new serial killer, The Riddler (Paul Dano), starts to target Gotham’s wealthy elite, the Dark Knight is drawn into a conspiracy that has him questioning everything about the city he protects.
This dark and brooding take on the world’s greatest detective has enjoyed near-universal praise from fans and critics alike and earned an A- CinemaScore. The question now is, what does all this mean for Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne?
Could we get a ‘The Batman 2‘ announcement sometime soon? We wouldn’t be surprised, and The Riddler’s website is counting down to something.