‘The Batman’ Can’t Save The Box Office Alone

Warner Bros.’ marketing folks dropped a minute-long commercial for The Batman during this past weekend’s NBA’s all-star game. I’ve been a little curmudgeonly about the earlier trailers, and specifically how they often played to me like a remake of Chris Nolan’s Batman Begins. As such, I should note that the commercial is the best, most exciting piece of marketing I’ve thus far seen for the Matt Reeves-directed flick. Maybe it’s just the music, the less frantic cutting and the pulpy sensibilities that play less “Sydney Lumet” and more “Abel Ferrara.” Granted, I prefer Night Falls in Manhattan to King of New York, but I’ll be thrilled if The Batman differentiates itself accordingly. Anyway, the issue is not how big The Batman will open but that so much of its would-be competition has flown the coop. The Dark Knight can’t hold up an entire industry. 

Alas, STX has moved Guy Ritchie’s Jason Statham/Aubrey Plaza-starring Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre off its March 18 slot, apparently due to confidence in the action-comedy (coupled with a lack of confidence, thanks Death on the Nile, in older moviegoers). STX also sold Chris Pine’s The Contractor to Showtime. That’s still two workable studio programmers that won’t open theatrically in March and April. Meanwhile, two of the next three weekends were already mostly vacant. Now February 25, March 11 and March 18 are almost completely devoid of “big” wide releases. We’ve got a Foo Fighters horror movie (Studio 666) this weekend, absolutely nothing on March 11 and Ti West’s 70-set horror flick X on March 18. That’s it, save for Lionsgate and Zachary Levi’s The Unbreakable Boy (which is hoping to duplicate the $24 million success of American Underdog) on March 18. 

I understand the reluctance of studios to offer big-deal movies right before and right after a big-deal Batman flick. Hellboy II opened with $35 million only to plunge 71% in weekend two against The Dark Knight’s record-breaking $158 million debut, while The X-Files: I Want to Believe opened with just $10 million during Dark Knight’s $75 million second weekend. However, we should remember that Mamma Mia! Opened with $27 million against The Dark Knight and legged out to $144 million domestic (while making just $5 million less than the Chris Nolan sequel overseas). X-Files flopped, but the Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy Step Brothers opened with $30 million in late July 2008. Alas, the star-driven comedy has since become an endangered species, even if the first real competition is now Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s The Lost City on March 25. 

I’ll be thrilled if a lack of competition means Paramount’s must-succeed (for the sake of the entire damn “just a movie” theatrical industry) rom-com opens big and legs out bigger than it otherwise might have. However, the biggest threat to movie theaters right now isn’t necessarily Covid, but rather too many studios prioritizing streaming gains even against “money in hand” theatrical success. Considering Illumination and Universal’s Sing 2 just crossed $333 million worldwide, there’s little commercial/situational reason for Disney to have sent Pixar’s (allegedly quite good) Turning Red to Disney+. I’d credit/blame Bob Chapek and friends prioritizing the perception of streaming success (and using Pixar’s esteemed artistic reputation) for an eager Wall Street. Either way, Turning Red is another potentially huge flick that won’t play in domestic theaters next month. The Batman will be single-handedly responsible for a month of domestic box office. 

Michael Bay’s Transformers: Age of Extinction opened nearly unopposed in late June 2014. Due to the presumption that the fourth film would just crush the box office, the week before saw just the small-scale likes of Think Like a Man Too and Jersey Boys while the usually lucrative July 4 weekend saw just Melissa McCarthy’s Tammy and the kid-targeted fantasy Earth to Echo. Age of Extinction topped $1 billion worldwide but slightly underperformed in North America, earning $240 million from a “mere” $100 million Fri-Sun weekend (Revenge of the Fallen had earned $200 million over five days in June 2009). The expected might of Transformers 4 left a crater in the domestic box office from late June to late July, leading to an entire summer of media chatter about how the domestic box office was in a slump compared to summer 2013. 

The real “slump” was mostly about likely summer-2014 hits Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey and The Good Dinosaur moving to 2015 with little left to take their place, but the situation should have been a warning about putting all your theatrical eggs in one basket. This became a touchier subject as studios began to more aggressively release would-be tentpoles year-round, something arguably popularized by Warner Bros.’ early-October 2013 success with Gravity ($723 million) and then Disney’s early-April success with Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($714 million). The possible downside was when one huge all-quadrant critical/commercial smash like Fox’s The Martian ($630 million in October 2015) or Disney’s Black Panther ($1.46 billion in February 2018), would steamroll a month’s worth of biggies. The films that held firm alongside Black Panther (Game Night, Peter Rabbit, I Can Only Imagine) were the opposite of tentpoles.  

Hollywood reacted partially by giving the big out-of-season tentpoles more breathing room (hence Godzilla: King of the Monsters shifting from March to May 2019). But the slight underperformance of Glass ($111 million domestic versus $137 million for Split) and outright disaster of LEGO Movie 2 ($101 million domestic versus $257 million for its predecessor) left the industry waiting for Captain Marvel to save them. After two years of pandemic-impacted box office, we have a scenario where, at least until April, the entire industry has (save for October and maybe November of last year) been predicated on one or two movies. August was all about The Suicide Squad and Free Guy (the former of which tanked), September was all about Shang-Chi, December was all about Spider-Man: No Way Home and Sing 2 and January was (after Sony moved Morbius to April) all about Scream.  

Sure, if The Batman plays like the second coming of The Dark Knight Rises (a $160 million opening and $448 million domestic) or Captain Marvel ($155 million/$425 million), then great. But what if it only plays like Suicide Squad ($133 million/$325 million) or Man of Steel ($128 million/$291 million)? That would be fine for The Batman, especially if it’s well-received and has post-debut legs (more likely due to lack of competition). But that would basically be it in terms of overall domestic box office. And if it “only” plays well, like say Captain America: The Winter Soldier ($259 million from a $95 million debut), well, that’s a problem for an industry that is hoping for a Spider-Man: No Way Home-level miracle because everything else got the hell out of dodge. Because in terms of four-quadrant tentpoles, The Batman is *it* until April. 

I’m expecting Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to score on April 8, as audiences liked the first one and Knuckles and Tails are big added value elements. However, it would be a considerable success at Sing 2-level box office. Jared Leto’s Morbius (April 1) and J.K. Rowling’s Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (April 15) are commercially questionable. In a normal world, say WB’s 2018 (and early 2019) slate, amid a healthy theatrical industry with WB riding high on Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam as audiences still show up for “regular” movies, The Batman would be a victory lap. But now, in 2022, with the 2020 and 2021 slates marred by Covid and “Project Popcorn,” The Batman is responsible to essentially “saving” DC Films, Warner Bros. and the whole theatrical industry. I’m sure it’ll be a hit, but it can’t save the box office alone.