The Batman officially opens in in (most) locations today, but the movie began its domestic rollout last night, amassing a very impressive $21.6 million from Thursday night preview screenings (this includes the $2M brought in from IMAX showings on Tuesday).
This is an excellent start for Matt Reeves' reboot, especially when you factor in the movie's near three-hour run-time. Warner Bros. is now predicting a $90 million opening weekend, but independent trackers believe it'll be closer to $100M, and could potentially reach $115M. Either way, it looks like The Batman is going to nab the second biggest "pandemic era" bow behind only the mighty Spider-Man: No Way Home.
The film has also been performing well overseas, despite being pulled from Russian theaters at the last minute. The current global opening weekend estimates are somewhere around the $225M mark. The critical response has been very positive, and although the Rotten Tomatoes score did dip a little since the review embargo lifted on Monday, it's now holding steady at a very respectable 85%.
Though Reeves has already confirmed early plans for a sequel, we're still waiting on official word from the studio. If The Batman performs as well as these estimates suggest (and doesn't suffer too big a drop going forward), an announcement should be with us soon.
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.