‘The Batman’ Passes $360 Million As ‘Sonic 2’ Tops $80 Million

The Batman, starring Robbert Pattinson and Zoe Kravitz, earned another $575,000 on Tuesday, up 4% from Monday and down 41% from its previous Tuesday. That brings its 40-day domestic total right up to $360 million. That’s just above the inflation-adjusted grosses of Batman Returns ($162 million in 1992) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves ($165 million in 1991).

Budgets notwithstanding (the Batman sequel cost $80 million while the Kevin Costner actioner cost $50 million), they both made near-identical domestic earnings but the Kevin Reynolds-directed adventure flew past the Tim Burton sequel overseas, earning $390 million worldwide versus $267 million.

I bring this up because both films were considered controversial in their respective summers due to comparatively violent content and “family unfriendly” sexual innuendoes, yet both were among the most successful superhero movies of the post-Batman, pre-Spider-Man era.

Prince of Thieves, which I still absolutely adore, remained the second-biggest grossing non-sequel superhero flick (behind Batman’s $411 million total) right up until The Matrix ($465 million in 1999). By the time The Avengers opened in May of 20112 (19 years later), Prince of Thieves was still the sixth biggest non-sequel superhero movie, behind only Spider-Man ($821 million), Iron Man ($585 million), The Matrix ($465 million) Thor ($449 million) and Batman ($411 million).

Meanwhile, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves still grossed less worldwide in the early 1990s than Costner’s The Bodyguard ($411 million) and Dances with Wolves ($424 million). This offers further evidence that Hollywood’s current comic book superhero domination wasn’t so much naturally generated so much as slowly forced-fed to us even as other kinds of films dominated the domestic and global box office.

What kind of Hollywood would we now have if Hollywood reacted to the $609 million gross of Mamma Mia (or even the $624 million gross of Will Smith’s Hancock) as much as they did the $585 million global gross of Iron Man? Hollywood and the pundits who cover it spent years trying to explain away the “fluke” success of The Twilight Saga. The $829 million global gross of Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part II still towers over the likes of The Amazing Spider-Man, Deadpool, Guardians of the Galaxy, Wonder Woman and The Batman.

Hollywood reacted to The Avengers by assuming everyone only wanted superheroes within cinematic universes. Now Hollywood got its wish, as the industry is almost entirely reliant on superheroes or video game characters who want to be superheroes.

Speaking of which, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, starring Ben Schwartz and Jim Carrey, earned another $5.05 million on Tuesday, 29% from its $4.33 million Monday and bringing its five-day domestic total to $81.5 million and around $160 million worldwide. The $110 million sequel will crack $100 million on late Friday or early Saturday. I’m currently using Kong: Skull Island ($168 million domestic from a $61 million debut this weekend in 2017) as a comparison point, and so far it’s pretty close.

A run like Skull Island will give it a $199 million domestic. If it’s that close, I see Paramount doing double-features with Sonic 2 and The Lost City (which just topped $70 million while placing second for the day ahead of Morbius) to get the former over $200 million and the latter Sandra Bullock/Channing Tatum flick over $100 million. Shenagins they may be, but it’s for a good cause!

If Sonic 2 is only as leggy as (the surprisingly good) 300: Rise of an Empire ($107 million from a $45 million debut in 2014), it’ll end with $171 million. That’ll be way past the $144-$148 million likes of Detective Pikachu, Uncharted and Sonic the Hedgehog to be the biggest-grossing video game movie ever in unadjusted domestic earnings.

Anything over $155 million puts it second in adjusted grosses behind only Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider ($131 million in 2001/$212 million adjusted). A drop like Skull Island and/or Rise of an Empire (over/under 55%) would give it a $33 million weekend and $122 million ten-day cume. However, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a smaller drop as word-of-mouth is excellent and J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts 3 is the kind of coin toss that could open with $50 million or $33 million.

Moreover, even if the Jeff Fowler-directed Sonic the Hedgehog 2 drops hard(er) in weekend two, I’d expect a recovery as it’s still the first big “explicitly for kids” flick since Sing 2 last Christmas and, depending on if DreamWorks’ (allegedly quite good) The Bad Guys opens well on the 22nd, the last of its ilk until Jurassic World: Dominion and Pixar’s Lightyear in mid-June.

Morbius is a non-entity and I’m guessing The Secrets of Dumbledore will (at best) play only to the Wizard World fans, leaving Sonic 2 as the only tentpole in town at least until Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness on May 2. If my spawn are any indication, Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick isn’t kid-specific competition for Sonic 2. Meanwhile, Jared Leto’s Morbius will pass $60 million domestic tomorrow as RRR nears $140 million worldwide.