Matt Reeves’ The Batman only hit theaters a week ago, but the latest cinematic reinvention of the enduring comic book icon is already busting blocks on a daily basis.
While it isn’t setting any records on a par with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, the Warner Bros. and DC Films epic is nonetheless rocketing up the pandemic-era ranking charts. In fact, Robert Pattinson’s debut as the Dark Knight is already the seventh highest-grossing Hollywood release to have hit theaters since the beginning of 2020.
After a robust second Friday that’s set it up for a $66 million weekend, The Batman has already sailed past $400 million globally. That’s good enough to take it beyond Denis Villenueve’s Dune, and the $401 million hoovered up by MCU’s Eternals, and it won’t be long before it usurps the $432 million of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
To put that into perspective, despite spending just eight days playing on the big screen, the only Stateside productions in the last two years and change to have brought in more box office dollars than The Batman are No Way Home, No Time to Die, Fast & Furious 9, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Godzilla vs. Kong, and Shang-Chi, and the latter two will be history in a few days.
That’s an incredible start for both the feature film franchise and the BatVerse as a whole, even though the GCPD spinoff was officially put on hold. However, that disappointment was quickly offset by The Penguin being ordered to series by HBO Max, so The Batman‘s rapid expansion plans remain on track.
