Even with AMC, Regal, and Cinemark reducing their ticket prices for the second weekend of Warner Bros.’ The Batman, the DC film had a phenomenal hold of -51% in weekend 2 with $66M. If you back out the $21.6M previews form last weekend’s $134M opening, the second weekend hold for the Matt Reeves movie is even better at -41%.
Batman‘s second weekend beats the second weekend hold of a Disney Marvel movie, which can post an average second weekend decline of -63%, and it’s ahead of previous DC movies’ second weekend eases, such as Batman v. Superman (-69%), and Dark Knight Rises (-61%), Justice League (-56%) and The Dark Knight (-53%).
Overall, excellent for a three-hour movie. Batman‘s running domestic cume through its second weekend will stand at $238.5M today. The pic clocked past $400M WW yesterday. It will soon pass a half-billion this week.
Imax and PLF drove 26% of Batman‘s second frame. However, we’re hearing that ticket sales are broadening out to non-format auditoriums.
Look around you: Moviegoing is returning; the only thing missing is arguably more product. Down here in SXSW, the back-to-back world premieres of Paramount’s Sandra Bullock-Channing Tatum movie The Lost City, and Lionsgate’s Nicolas Cage action satire The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, played like gangbusters at Austin TX’s Paramount Theatre. If those were test screenings last night, judging from the shared non-stop laughs between both films, it’s easy to project that the sky is the limit on both films. If you forgot what the experience was like to laugh and cheer with a crowded theater (Deadpool?), those movies were a screaming reminder.
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 hosted SNL last night.
Despite the pandemic calming down and the mask mandate easing in Los Angeles and New York, the middle of the box office is filled largely with holdovers. However, Trafalgar Releasing’s Saturday night stunt, BTS Permission to Dance on Stage – Seoul Live Viewing did great business, with $6.8M at 803 theaters in 170 markets, with an $8,5K theater average. The concert film even beat The Batman in 55 locations, and was a No. 2 in all the rest. Fantastic ticket sales here in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Sacramento, and Sat Lake City. Exhibition loves this type of one-night-only stuff, and there will only be more alternative programming in the future (it was already happening via Fathom, pre-pandemic).
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.
Had Disney kept Pixar’s Turning Red in theaters this weekend nationwide, 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. I received an email about the Pixar movie playing the AMC Empire 25 in NYC. This is true, and it’s also playing the El Capitan in Hollywood. These are awards qualifying runs for the 2022-23 season.
Note 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 an estimated $106M with the Batman hold and BTS Saturday, -50% from the same weekend in 2019, which was when Disney had Captain Marvel, which boomed all tickets sales for that weekend to north of $210M.
Weekend Top 10, chart:
1.) The Batman (WB) 4,417 theaters Fri $18.8M (-66%)/Sat $28.6M/Sun $18.6M/3-day: $66M (-51%) Total $238.5M/Wk 2
2.) Uncharted (Sony) 3,725 (-150) theaters, Fri $2.4M (-19%)/Sat $4.1M/Sun $2.7M/3-day $9.25M (-17%)/Total $113.3M/Wk 4
3.) BTS Permission to Dance (Trag) 803 theaters, Sat $6.8M/Wk 1
4.) Dog (UAR) 3,407 (-100) theaters, Fri $1.38M (-13%)/Sat $2.4M/Sun $1.56M/3-day $5.3M (-13%)/Total $47.8M/Wk 4
5.) Spider-Man: No Way Home (Sony) 2,702 (-7) theaters, Fri $970K (-10%) /Sat $1.85M/Sun $1.25M/ 3-day $4M (-11%)/Total $792.2M/Wk 13
6.) Death on the Nile (Dis) 2,450 (-115) theaters, Fri $680K (-12%)/Sat $1.1M/Sun $692k/3-day $2.5M (-7%)/Total $40.8M/Wk 5
7.) Radhe Shyam (Alerion) 800 theaters, Fri $1.25M/Sat $350K/Sun $260K/ 3-day $1.86M/Wk 1
8.) Sing 2 (Uni/Ill) 1,988 (-38) theaters, Fri $340K /Sat $730K/Sun $510K /3-day $1.58M (-3%)/Total: $155.8M/Wk 12
9.) Jackass Forever(Par) 1,627 (-354) theaters, Fri $320K (-25%)/Sat $465K/Sun $315K/3-day $1.1M (-23%)/Total: $56.2M/Wk 6
10.) Scream (Par) 664 (-189) theaters Fri $120K (-25%)/Sat $210K/Sun $115K/3-day $445M (-23%) /Total: $80.9M/Wk 9