Refresh for latest…: Just days after Warner Bros/DC’s The Batman rounded the five-century mark globally, it is now just shy of $600M worldwide in its third weekend. A $49.1M overseas frame (down 46% versus last session) brings the international box office cume on the Matt Reeves-directed pic to $298M, with global standing at $598.1M through Sunday.
Gotham’s vigilante hero is eyeing an ultimate worldwide total north of $750M, and that will be without a significant boost from China where The Batman bowed this weekend. The opening there took the No. 1 slot with an estimated RMB 76.7M ($12.1M), including $2M from IMAX. This is the best PRC opening for Hollywood in 2022, but is not a number that incites excitement. However, as we have noted since last Sunday and beyond, the launch was expected to be inauspicious amid a Covid spike that has increasingly hit the market. Approximately 43% of cinemas are now temporarily closed, including in Shanghai and Shenzhen, among the top areas for imported films.
As we also noted coming into the weekend, the movie has strong social mojo in China with a 9 on ticketing platform Maoyan — a figure that did not shift across the frame. However, Maoyan has reduced its prediction for the full run to RMB 166.7M ($26.2M).
Given the lukewarm reception to Hollywood movies in China over the past several months, it would have been nice to see how The Batman performed had the market been firing on all cylinders. But even without a China boost, The Batman will be just fine. To wit: in like-for-likes at today’s rates, the overseas total is tracking ahead of Justice League by 9% (a title that did over $106M in China), 22% above Wonder Woman (which did $90M+ in China) and 54% over Godzilla Vs Kong (which did $189M in China). Each of those movies also had substantially shorter runtimes.
Week-on-week holds are still very strong in many markets including Germany (-28%), France (-32%), Brazil (-40%), Australia (-43%), and Mexico (-45%). The Top 5 markets to date are the UK ($43.7M), Mexico ($24.7M), Australia ($21.3M), Brazil ($18.2M) and France ($17.3M).
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