‘The Batman’ Charts Third Best First Monday At Pandemic Domestic Box Office

LOS ANGELES -- Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum led the action-adventure comedy throwback “The Lost City” to a $31 million debut in U.S. and Canadian theaters over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, dethroning “The Batman” from the No.

The biggest box office hit of the COVID era added $1.7 million this weekend in theaters to join “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Avengers: Endgame” as the only movies to hit that rare benchmark in the U.S. and Canada.

The Lost City” led the domestic box office on its premier night Friday.The star-studded flick grossed $11.6 million, according to the IMDB’s Box Office Mojo database.The latest Batman reboot followed with $5.5 million Friday and $317 million cumulatively.Indian epic drama “RRR” also premiered, grossing $5.4 million on its opening night.

While the romcom adventure film starring Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum has some work to do to turn a profit with its reported $68-70 million budget, it still stands as the third Paramount film to open to No. 1 at the box office. After having a very limited presence in theaters last year, Paramount found some theatrical success in the early stages of 2022 with low-budget offerings “Scream” and “Jackass Forever” and is now hoping to find more with this pricier mid-budget film catering to a different demographic than the mostly 18-35 male crowd that has defined the theatrical market.

EXCLUSIVE: Given how late the Oscars are this year on March 27, and how Covid held older adults back from attending cinemas, an Oscar halo effect was never expected to take place at the domestic box office for Best Picture nominees.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterAfter three weeks atop domestic box office charts, “The Batman” will face competition from a nearly endangered Hollywood species: movie stars.At a time when familiar franchises, not big-name talent, have been dictating commercial success, Paramount is banking on the combined wattage of Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum to lure audiences to “The Lost City,” a screwball romantic comedy that opens in theaters this weekend and harkens back to a genre that has mostly fallen out of favor with moviegoers.Buoyed by strong reviews and A-list actors, including a cameo from Brad Pitt and villainous turn from Daniel Radcliffe, “The Lost City” is expected to earn a promising $20 million in its opening weekend. Those ticket sales would put the film in an extremely close race against “The Batman” for first place.

While the threat of another industry-crippling COVID-19 wave still looms, the end of this past winter’s Omicron surge has given new hope to indie and specialty distributors trying to get moviegoers back into arthouses. But like the wider blockbuster scene, the biggest specialty success was driven by younger moviegoers with “Jujutsu Kaisen 0,” which scored another victory for Sony’s import wing Crunchyroll.

The Batman remains a hit.

“The Batman” earns its third No. 1 weekend with $10 million grossed on Friday and an estimated $39 million weekend total.

The Batman” — the latest Hollywood remake of the caped crusader — led the domestic box office, raking in $10.6 million on Friday, according to IMDB’s Box Office Mojo database.Now in its third weekend, the movie has grossed $273.9 million through Friday.Anime “Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie” followed, grossing $5.7 million on its opening night.“Uncharted,” the action flick based on a video game, came next with $2.3 million Friday, bringing its total to $120.1 million.

J. Kim Murphy It was another easy pathway to the top slot at the domestic box office for “The Batman.” Now in its third weekend, the Warner Bros.

Earlier this week, “The Batman” became just the fifth Hollywood film in the past year to gross over $500 million worldwide and should pass the $300 million domestic mark and $600 million global mark by the end of this weekend. While the new COVID-19 infection surge in China has closed over 25% of theaters in that country as “The Batman” opens there, the film is still on pace to surpass the theatrical runs of “F9” and “No Time to Die” and become only the second Hollywood film to gross over $800 million since the pandemic began.

Under the new hours-watched weekly metric charts implemented by Netflix back in November, the Shawn Levy-Ryan Reynolds re-team, The Adam Project, exploded with 92.4 million hours watched by the streamer’s subscribers for the week ending March 13. The figure includes all hours watched for the movie, both those who’ve watched the movie once and multiple times.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau ChiefTreasure-hunting action adventure “Uncharted” picked up $1.95 million in China on Monday, its official opening day, according to local box office tracking sources. Provisional data from Ent Group showed it launching in first place on Monday, becoming the first film to displace the long-running Chinese patriotic war movie “The Battle at Lake Changjin II,” which had reigned supreme since Feb.

Though the Friday-to-Friday drop is 67% due to strong preview and opening day numbers, “The Batman” has a strong chance of holding its weekend drop to below 55% of its $134 million opening weekend. That would mark one of the best second weekend holds for any film since theaters reopened and the best for any DC film featuring Batman film since “The Dark Knight” in 2008.

Queen Elizabeth was photographed for the first time in person after recovering from COVID-19.

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media Reporter“The Batman” landed a bigger opening weekend than Warner Bros., the studio behind the comic book adventure, initially expected.The latest superhero epic, starring Robert Pattinson as an exceptionally moody Caped Crusader, collected $134 million in North American theaters over the weekend, above Sunday’s estimates of $128.5 million.Those ticket sales rank as the best opening weekend of 2022, as well as only the second pandemic-era movie to cross the $100 million mark in a single weekend following “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”The reason behind the 4% bump in Monday’s final tally is because “The Batman” had a better-than-expected turnout on Sunday, bringing in $34.1 million. That’s more than some pandemic-era releases managed to earn in their entire theatrical runs.

The Queen has finally returned to face-to-face engagements as she met the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 50.The 95 year old monarch had been avoiding all in-person plans on her royal schedule due to an extended bout of COVID-19. Aides and medics did their best to help the Queen isolate, as she continued to present with "mild symptoms" of Covid, and she hosted a number of official figures via Zoom and video link.