THE BATMAN opening | DC COMICS and MARVEL movies | Russian and Ukrainian theatrical markets | March 4 to 6, 2022 weekend
Opening weekend box office figures, charts and commentary
The current weekend: March 4 to 6, 2022
1) The Batman opening
- This is an excellent opening. The weekend figure is not as big as Batman v Superman in 2016, but it’s well above average for a superhero episode this late in its series, and it’s a strong return to the central character after Joker’s successful and long run. Batman, Spider-Man, and X-Men are the only comic book heroes to make it to nine episodes; this Batman is number 10, and with a new cast set for the future. Reviews are outstanding:
- This weekend’s top-10 chart looks as good as it has in a long time. The films include a range of genres — superhero, comedy, family, action, romantic comedy — which means audiences are diversifying. The release schedule will continue to have holes in it during the spring, including next weekend, but the summer is packed. Notwithstanding the war in Europe, moviegoing fundamentals are moving in the right direction. Covid continues to drop and warmer weather is coming — momentum should build now.
2) DC Comics and Marvel movies
The Last Five New Series
- The last five DC Comics series launches have been sensational, including Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Aquaman, and to a lesser extent Shazam! All of these films opened before the pandemic.
- Marvel’s last five launches started with Captain Marvel and Venom — outstanding. The next three releases got caught in the pandemic and simultaneous streaming, and all three were blocked in China, which has been a strong market for superheroes: Black Widow, Shang-Chi, and Eternals:
The Last Five Sequels
- The last five DC Comics sequels have been mixed: Joker and Batman v Superman did extremely well, but the Harley Quinn/Suicide Squad spin-off ($202m worldwide), and Suicide Squad 2 and Wonder Woman 2 ($167m each), crashed after excellent first episodes. Suicide Squad 1 and Wonder Woman 1 showed outstanding potential ($747m and $822m, respectively). The follow-ups were unable to establish strong, long-running series. Those opportunities do not come along often.
- The last five Marvel sequels have been superb, with the exception of X-Men 11, which capped a prolific and strong series. The other four were Avengers: Endgame 4, Spider-Man 9, Ant-Man 2, and Venom 2:
- Keeping these series fresh — moving the characters forward, maintaining the storytelling quality, adding new worlds, new antagonists, new set pieces — is as hard as any creative challenge in the business. These are big stories. They are IP crown jewels that can live indefinitely. Marvel has consistently grown their series. DC Comics has not sustained a series over multiple episodes outside of Batman and Superman.
- With Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman gone, the next opportunities to expand the DC Comics repertoire are the Shazam! spin-off Black Adam in July 2022; Aquaman 2 in December 2022; and Shazam! 2 in June 2023.
3) The Russian and Ukrainian theatrical film markets
- Russia is an important theatrical market — it ranked #9 in 2019, with approx. $900m in total box office (all films), just below #8 Mexico (approx. $1 billion), and just ahead of #10 Australia (also approx. $900m). $900m represented 2.1% of the total worldwide box office for all films in 2019 ($42.5b).
- Ukraine's box office in 2019 was roughly 10% to 15% the size of Russia's. (Figures MPAA.)
- Between the two markets, 2.3% of of worldwide movigoing does not look like a big piece of business, but who wants to give up a billion dollars?
- Joker made $37.3m in Russia in October 2019, and it made $4.2m in Ukraine. If The Batman were opening in Russia this weekend (it's not), the Russian Ruble is now worth 57% of what it was in October 2019.