MOVIE NEWS – The Batman will be in cinemas next month, and current predictions are that the film will have an opening weekend comparable to the pre-COVID period.

Much anticipation is preceding Robert Pattinson’s upcoming superhero film. Batman’s latest adventure is expected to be a big box office draw. Early Box Office Pro estimates predict an opening weekend of $150 million when it hits cinemas in early March. By comparison, this prediction puts the film on par with Captain Marvel, which hit theatres around March 2019, and well above many 2021 films such as Black Widow and other Marvel films, except Spider-Man: No Turning Back.

Since the announcement of the film, and more importantly the lead actor, public opinion of Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and his crime-fighting alter ego has changed significantly, and anticipation for the film has grown with each new clip and trailer released. The film has now become one of the highest-grossing films expected for 2022 and has managed to silence many detractors before the film’s premiere. Thanks to the many social media shares and subsequent comments, it seems clear that fans are incredibly optimistic about what we have seen so far through trailers of Pattinson’s Dark Knight movie.

Whilst Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy reworked Batman’s origin story, as many previous major iterations have done, Matt Reeves has specifically avoided including any origin story sequences, as he feels it has been done too many times before. Instead, he thought it would be more interesting to show a much earlier stage in the character’s career. He previously said, “We’ve seen it too many times. I felt like this was the best version of the story we could do to justify doing another Batman. There always needs to be a reason, and for me, that was the mission from the beginning”.

There’s a lot of ambition in The Batman, with a cast that includes many familiar faces from the Batman stories, including Catwoman, Riddler, Penguin, Carmine Falcone and many other famous characters. So far, this has been done to give them all enough screen time, resulting in a 176-minute film, making it the longest Batman movie ever. While this obviously gives Reeves plenty of leeway to tell the story, he wants to tell, some believe that the epic running time could hurt the film by limiting the number of screenings that can be shown in cinemas per day. However, as there is no competing film coming out in the same week, this is unlikely to have too much of an adverse effect on the film.

Speaking of which, The Batman is not only a success in its own right but also potentially a considerable investment that Warner Bros. has made in the two planned spinoff series and potential sequels in the future. Reeves and Warner had a choice to make between cutting back on the running time or telling a detailed, complex and complete story that would appeal to audiences for the title character’s new adventure, and it was clear to the director and screenwriter, as well as the studio, that they would choose the latter option.

Source: Movieweb