'The Batman' second-best in pandemic era, lands on $128.5 mn weekend

Los Angeles: Robert Pattinson's 'The Batman' collected a mighty $128.5 million in its box office debut in North America, making it only the second pandemic-era movie to cross the $100-million mark in a single weekend. The feat was first achieved by 'Spider-Man: No Way Home', which launched last December to a historic $260 million.

Pattinson's moody take on the Caped Crusader is shaping up to be a commercial winner for Warner Bros, which had shelled out $200 million to produce the film and spent many millions more in marketing and distribution costs. "Bringing 'The Batman' to the big screen doesn't come cheap, and achieving profitability won't be easy," notes 'Variety'.

'The Batman' may have also benefited because the comic book adaptation is playing exclusively in theatres. For Warner Bros, which opted to debut its entire 2021 theatrical film slate simultaneously on HBO Max, 'The Batman' marks a deviation as the studio's first movie in more than a year that's only available to watch in cinemas.

The film might have also been helped by the fact that it had notched up a PG-13 rating. rather than R, and therefore was able to capture the key demographic of younger males, who have been fuelling the wobbly recovery of the North American box office.