CinemaCon touts itself as the biggest gathering of movie theater owners in the world, and at this year’s event in Las Vegas, The Batman director Matt Reeves stood on stage and pledged allegiance to the big filmgoing experience. Per a report in Deadline, Reeves kicked off the festivities by declaring, “What we do takes audiences on journeys of discovery to places of wonder. I will continue to do what I do to work to secure the future of the theatrical experience…. Showing my work…. as it was meant to be seen in your theaters.”
This kicked off a round of applause among the assembled theater owners, who have spent the past two years battling a COVID-related depression in ticket sales, as well as streaming services who have experimented with shrinking – or eliminating entirely – the traditional window between theatrical opening and streaming debut.
This falls in line with an earlier investor call with David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery which produced The Batman, in which he said dismissed the idea of streaming-only premieres for films, saying, “Should we collapse the entire motion picture business on streaming? I said, ‘No.’ But now the data is showing ‘No Way.’”
Reeves touted his film’s box office success, which is big news for the assembled owners of the actual physical box offices that collected the money.
“My recent film, The Batman, is now over $760M at the global box office. I’m so grateful to the incredible cast and crew who worked with me to create this labor of love. It was a true team effort that started with the support of Warner Bros behind me, but we couldn’t have gotten to this place without you. As a lifelong passionate fan of movies, I treasure what you do.”
But if you missed it in theaters, The Batman is currently available to stream on HBO Max.
