The Batman is projected to have the best opening weekend of 2022 so far after beating Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins' opening weekend in just one day. The newest entry in the canon of the DC Comics Caped Crusader stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman and came to theaters March 4, 2022. The film follows Batman in his first few years as Gotham's premier deliverer of vigilante justice when a serial killer known as the Riddler (Paul Dano) starts wreaking havoc around town. He must form an uneasy truce with Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz) to track him down, even though their investigations will uncover some dark secrets about the Wayne family.
The Batman has arrived at a pivotal moment for the 2022 box office. Although there have been some wide releases scattered throughout the beginning of the year, there have been several weekends completely barren of new major movies. This is partially what allowed the box office juggernaut Spider-Man: No Way Home to continue its run at #1 more or less unabated (save for one weekend where it was knocked off by Scream 2022's strong opening showing). Time after time, the only movies that have proven themselves to be fully pandemic-proof are superhero projects, and after Morbius moved to April to get out of the way of Spider-Man, The Batman became the next major hero tentpole after that MCU entry.
Per Deadline, The Batman's Friday box office numbers have come in, and the film continues its strong opening weekend take, which is projected to be the best of 2022 so far. It swooped in with a full day 1 total of $55 million, en route to an opening weekend take of $110 million or more. Batman Begins grossed $48 million in its 3-day opening weekend when it was released in 2005. This is considerably more than any other 2022 project to date, with Uncharted claiming second place at $44 million, followed by Scream's $30 million.
The Batman is also performing competitively with pre-pandemic blockbusters, landing the sixth-best March opening weekend of all time. It's even set to premiere higher than DC's last big box office opener Joker, which nabbed $96.2 million in 2019. This take is even scraping rather close to box office juggernaut Spider-Man, which debuted at $121.9 million.
With a strong opening and largely positive reviews from critics and audiences alike, The Batman will certainly have a strong theatrical showing. Later in the year, it will face competition from a slate of Marvel movies including Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder, so its claim to the 2022 opening weekend title may eventually be toppled. However, this box office take is spelling good news for this new Bat universe, which will be continuing with a potential sequel as well as a spinoff series following Colin Farrell as the Penguin.
Source: Deadline
