Warner Bros.’ The Batman, as expected, is leading the weekend box office in what is expected to be a three-frame No. 1 streak with a very healthy hold of -51% and $66M, on its way to $238.5M by Sunday. Already, the Matt Reeves directed movie is over $400M WW. Yesterday clocked $18.7M, -47% from last Friday (-67% if you compare against pic’s first Friday+previews).
That hold beats that previous DC movies’ second weekend declines of Batman v. Superman (-69%), and Dark Knight Rises (-61%), Justice League (-56%) and The Dark Knight (-53%).
RelishMix noticed the post-social chatter on the DC movie, reporting that it “runs positive as doubts are extinguished with cast choices applauded for Robert Pattinson’s performance as an all-time best Batman performance, while fans continue to adore Nirvana’s music in the film, which was inspiration for Matt Reeves as he was writing the film.” YouTube videos popped most on social digital, adding 20.6M views for studio-owned and earned materials over the week. Official social pages for the film added 282K new fans, notably on Instagram, with Twitter and Facebook pages now totaling 1.3M for The Batman.
Zoe Kravitz’s super Instagram has surged up to 7.4M fans, adding 617K over the week, with images from the spicy new Ellen Von Unwerth photo Wonderland magazine, with portraits of the actress and Pattinson. In a further promo boost for the pic in theaters, Kravitz is hosting SNL tonight.
Despite the pandemic calming down and the mask mandate easing in Los Angeles and New York, the middle of the box office is filled with holdovers. Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home is still gunning toward $800M, but will stand at $792.2M by Sunday after a 13th weekend take of $4M, -11%, and a theatrical booking of 2,702 locations. That’s a theatrical hold that any rival distributor would envy three months after a pic’s release.
Note, if Disney had kept Pixar’s Turning Red in theaters this weekend, that could have possibly delivered $20M-$30M+, at least providing a depth of dollars for exhibitors this weekend. True, you can argue that the studio didn’t know how long omicron would linger, but we got Sing 2 still hanging around in the top 10 of the box office 12 weekends after its release, with $1.55M. C’mon, Disney, you know families are heading out to the theater.
Here’s another interesting takeaway with Turning Red: I’ve been told that when Netflix launches a show or movie (outside their major awards season fare), they spend a very thrifty amount of money, relying squarely on their subscriber menu to launch a title.
But in the case of Disney with Turning Red, they’ve shelled out for the pic like it was a major theatrical release. Why? Likely the marketing money was already there and accounted for, but also they’re eager for the Disney+ subscribers. The bombardment of Turning Red ads on social media is arguably on par with what Lionsgate was pushing for Moonfall (and that studio did, in fact, push that movie).
iSpot shows that Disney spent $23M for US TV spots. That’s as much as they spent for Black Widow, and more than Jungle Cruise ($19.5M), Cruella ($12.6M), and what Netflix spent on Red Notice ads ($3.3M), that streamer’s most-watched movie ever.
Disney ran spots during the Winter Olympics, Big City Greens, Miraculous -Tale of Ladybug & Cat Noir, The Bachelor and Good Morning America. iSpot reports that Turning Red‘s trailer was the 16th-most-seen spot on all of TV since Feb. 21. Why didn’t Disney keep this movie in theaters? Again, they need the subscribers over at Disney+, given the billions they’re spending on streaming programming, which isn’t coming down the pipeline as fast as it needs to be.
All-in, total weekend tickets sales stand at $95M, -43% from last weekend, and 55% off from the same weekend in 2019. That was when Disney had Captain Marvel, which boomed all tickets sales for that weekend to north of $210M.
Weekend Top 10:
1.) The Batman (WB) 4,417 theaters Fri $18.7M (-67%)/3-day: $66M (-51%) Total $238.5M/Wk 2
2.) Uncharted (Sony) 3,725 (-150) theaters, Fri $2.4M (-19%)/3-day $9M (-19%)/Total $113.1M/Wk 4
3.) Dog (UAR) 3,407 (-100) theaters, Fri $1.38M (-13%)/3-day $5.1M (-16%)/Total $47.6M/Wk 4
4.) Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony) 2,702 (-7) theaters, Fri $960K (-11%) / 3-day $4M (-11%)/Total $792.2M/Wk 13
5.) Radhe Shyam (Alerion) 800 theaters, Fri $1.25M, 3-day $3.2M/Wk 1
6.) Death on the Nile (Dis) 2,450 (-115) theaters, Fri $680K (-12%)/3-day $2.3M (-14%)/Total $40.6M/Wk 5
7.) Sing 2 (Uni/Ill) 1,988 (-38) theaters, Fri $330K (-1%)/3-day $1.55M (-5%)/Total: $155.7M/Wk 12
8.) Jackass Forever(Par) 1,627 (-354) theaters, Fri $320K (-25%)/3-day $1.1M (-23%)/Total: $56.2M/Wk 6
9.) Scream (Par) 664 (-189) theaters Fri $120K (-25%)/3-day $430M (-25%) /Total: $80.9M/Wk 9
10.) Cyrano (UAR) 694 (-103) theaters Fri $118K (-38%)/3-day $410K (-40%)/Total $2.57M/Wk 3