‘The Batman’ Tops ‘Eternals’ And ‘No Time To Die’ With $173 Million Cume

Matt Reeves and Peter Craig’s The Batman earned another $8.45 million, essentially tied with its $8.47 million Wednesday gross and pointing toward and a $55-$60 million second-weekend gross. Again, I wouldn’t quite panic if the film drops as hard as, say, Spider-Man: Homecoming (-62% after a $117 million launch), as the whole “most folks who really wanted to see it and can’t wait until HBO Max did so in week one” factor balances out against the “Hollywood is all-but refusing to release movies in theaters” situation.

If you recall, Homecoming dropped like a rock in weekend two in summer 2017 but leveled out over the next month partially due to a lack of big-deal family-friendly flicks between July and, shockingly, Thor: Rangorak in October. We can debate how family-friendly The Batman happens to be, but we’ve been having that argument since summer 1989 and (save for the outcry over Batman Returns) it never really matters to the bottom line.

With $172.5 million in seven days, The Batman will has passed the $160-$165 million cumes of A Quiet Place, No Time to Die and Eternals. It’ll pass the $173 million-$183 million cumes of F9 and Black Widow tomorrow. It will end the weekend just past Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($214 million) and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($225 million) to be the second-biggest Covid-era domestic grosser behind Spider-Man: No Way Home. As far as global grosses go, it opened with $1.1 million in Japan yesterday, bigger than any DC flick save for Joker ($1.9 million).

Japan will help, but The Dark Knight Rises earned “just” $24 million in summer 2012 while Joker earned $46 million in late 2019. Otherwise, the likes of Batman v Superman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Justice League earned $9-$17 million. Presuming a continued 51/49 split, it has earned around $336 million worldwide and should top $400 million on Saturday. Presuming a continued 51/49 split and a weekend gross between $53 million and $65 million, The Batman could be between $435 million and $451 million worldwide by Sunday night.

Among all Covid-era releases, that’ll put it behind only Godzilla Vs. Kong ($468 million), Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($505 million), F9 ($721 million), No Time to Die ($774 million) and Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.86 billion). Very rough spitball math, but The Batman could end its run between $650 million and $725 million global plus whatever it earns in China starting next week.

If that seems low, well A) it’s not a multigenerational nostalgia event and B) I could be wrong. Of note, F9’s sans-China cume is “only” $516 million worldwide while No Time to Die’s sans-China total is around $710 million. In pre-Covid times, Chinese box office might have added another $95-$125 million to that total. But in Covid times, when Free Guy can earn $95 million but The Matrix Resurrections stalls out with $13.6 million, well, it’s frankly a coin toss.