‘The Batman’ keeps gliding as box-office leader in second weekend

With no new major releases for the weekend, Warner Bros.’ ‘The Batman’ has an easy path to repeating its top performance at the domestic box-office.
The DC adaptation grossed an additional $18.7 million on Friday from 4,417 locations, more than enough to maintain the No. 1 position on North American charts, reports variety.com.
That performance represents a 67 per cent drop-off from the film’s $57 million opening day, though that debut figure also includes $21.6 million from Thursday preview screenings populated by eager fans. Looking solely at last Friday’s numbers, aThe Batman’ is showing a much more encouraging 47 percent decline, reports variety.com.
Compared to other recent superhero releases, ‘The Batman’ is holding a little less mightily than its peers. In their respective second Fridays, Disney’s ‘Eternals’ dropped 63.2 per cent and ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ fell 53.4 per cent, though both of those films represented properties new to moviegoers, thus being less likely to draw a front-loaded performance.
When measured up against other WB films featuring the Caped Crusader is showing a stronger hold than ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (a 77 per cent drop) and ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (an 82 per cent drop).
Last weekend, ‘The Batman’ bested box office predictions in its debut, raking in $134 million. Its ticket sales ranked as the best of 2022 so far, and it became the second pandemic-era theatrical release to cross the $100 million mark in its first weekend, after ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’.
Though the film will face some competition in ‘The Lost City’ next weekend, it’s likely that ‘The Batman’ will continue to clean up on domestic charts until another superhero epic, ‘Morbius’, premieres on April 1.
The dark take on the superhero has earned very positive reviews, with Variety’s Peter Debruge naming it a critic’s pick and writing that the “grounded, frequently brutal and nearly three-hour film noir registers among the best of the genre, even if, or more aptly, because what makes the film so great is its willingness to dismantle and interrogate the very concept of superheroes”.
Besides Robert Pattinson as a moody Bruce Wayne, the film also stars Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, Paul Dano as the Riddler, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth and Colin Farrell as the Penguin.
Directed by Matt Reeves, the production proved to be a prolonged one due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with a production budget ballooning past $200 million.