‘The Batman’ Nears $500 Million To Become 2022’s Biggest Hit

Warner Bros.’ The Batman earned another $6.37 million on its second Monday, dropping 68% from Sunday and 41% from its first Monday gross. That brings its domestic cume up to $245.4 million in 11 days of release. Barring a fluke in terms of Tuesday upswings (“cheap ticket Tuesday”), it’ll pass the $251.5 million unadjusted domestic gross of Tim Burton’s Batman sometime tonight. Back in 1989, the Michael Keaton/Jack Nicholson epic broke the opening weekend record (by a lot) with a $43 million Fri-Sun debut and eventually earned $251 million domestic to become the fifth-biggest domestic grosser ever.

In an ironic development, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man would break the opening weekend record in summer 2002 with a $114 million debut and leg out to $403 million to itself become (at the time) the fifth-biggest domestic earner. Neither film would top the global box office for their respective years, coming in behind Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ($475 million in 1989) and both The Two Towers ($937 million in 2002) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets ($879 million in 2002) respectively. Despite decades of alleged superhero movie dominance, The Dark Knight would mark the first time a comic book superhero flick would top globally, with $533 million domestic and $1.004 billion worldwide.

Even its $469 million overseas gross was right in between Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($474 million) and Mamma Mia! ($466 million). The Avengers would top the year globally in 2012 (ten years ago) with $623 million domestic and $1.519 billion worldwide, while The Dark Knight Rises would place third with $1.084 billion behind Avengers and Skyfall ($1.1 billion) and just ahead of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey ($1.017 billion). Its $632 million overseas gross was behind the likes of Avengers ($895 million), Skyfall ($803 million), Hobbit ($715 million) and… Ice Age: Continental Drift ($714 million).

It is a little frustrating, especially in hindsight and considering the consequences, that Hollywood reacted to The Avengers by attempting to replicate the MCU but yet (just three years later) reacted to Furious 7 ($1.515 billion) and Jurassic World ($1.671 billion) by still trying to replicate the MCU even as Gravity out-grossed Man of Steel and The Wolverine barely earned more overseas ($282 million versus $275 million) than The Wolf of Wall Street. One (of many) downside of SEO-driven media coverage is that you’d get the impression that Ant-Man and the Wasp ($619 million in 2018) was a bigger hit than Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ($1.308 billion).

Presuming a continued 51/49 domestic/overseas split, we’re looking at a current $480 million worldwide total, meaning the film should pass $500 million worldwide tomorrow. When that happens, it’ll pass Venom: Let There Be Carnage to become the fourth-biggest pandemic-era Hollywood flick (and, since it’s past Bad Boys for Life’s $430 million cume, fourth among anything outside of China released in 2020, 2021 and 2022) behind F9 ($721 million), No Time to Die ($774 million) and Spider-Man: No Way Home (which arrives on VOD today as it nears $800 million domestic and $1.9 billion worldwide). And with a gross just above Battle at Lake Changjin 2 ($480 million), The Batman is now 2022’s biggest global grosser.

It has already passed Godzilla Vs. Kong ($468 million in 2021) to become Warner Bros.’ biggest pandemic-era global grosser. It has, in terms of pre-Covid WB flicks, out-grossed everything in 2019 save for Joker ($1.073 billion in late 2019) and is just their third-biggest grosser since Aquaman ($1.148 billion in late 2018). No, this doesn’t mean that the likes of The Matrix Resurrections, The Suicide Squad and Space Jam: A New Legacy ($156-$168 million worldwide on $150 million-$190 million budgets) would have been substantially bigger hits sans the HBO Max variable, but this justifies a return to at least a 45-day theatrical window.

Among all Covid-era releases, The Batman is past the aforementioned Hollywood flicks and everything from China save for Detective Chinatown 3 ($685 million), Hi, Mom ($835 million) and The Battle at Lake Changjin ($905 million). It’ll outgross the third Detective Chinatown but the other two are still up in the air. Fun fact: the Detective Chinatown trilogy earned more in China ($1.352 billion) than Chris Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy earned ($1.187 billion) in North America. Yes, The Batman opens in China on Friday, but what that’ll be worth is very much a coin toss both due to worsening Covid conditions and the unpredictability of Hollywood movies performing in China since 2019.

In pre-Covid times, a DC or Marvel solo superhero movie was good for $90-$125 million, with some in 2018/2019 like Aquaman, Venom and Captain Marvel soaring well past that. But in 2022, when Marvel isn’t playing in China and even Matrix Resurrections earns $14 million, Warner is hopefully smart enough to know that China should be treated like a cherry on top rather than a core ingredient of the sundae. With around $265 million domestic and $515 million worldwide heading into its opening day in China, Matt Reeves and Peter Craig’s $185 million The Batman is already a hit no matter where it goes from here.