The Batman is headed for an opening weekend haul of $128.5 million, after $57 million on Friday (including previews), another $43 million on Saturday, and an estimated $28 million on Sunday. This is the highest opening weekend of 2022, the highest of director Matt Reeves’ career, and the highest pandemic era debut for Warner Bros. It’s the studio’s first theater-only release since 2020’s Tenet—W.B. spent the following year mired in controversy after announcing that it would release each film on its 2021 slate simultaneously on the HBO Max streaming service.

The Batman, which will arrive on HBO Max 45 days after its release, has made more in its opening weekend than any 2021 W.B. film made in its entire theatrical run. It's worth pointing out that $15 million of its opening weekend haul came from IMAX screenings.

The Batman’s $128.5 million debut—which can realistically increase by tomorrow—is the fifth-highest for March, behind Beauty and the Beast ($174.7 million), Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million), Captain Marvel ($153.4 million), and The Hunger Games ($152.5 million). By comparison, it fell short of the opening weekend totals posted by Christopher Nolan’s second and third Batman films—The Dark Knight (158 million) and The Dark Knight Rises (160 million). It also trails Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice ($166 million), but outperformed the similarly dense standalone Joker movie directed by Todd Phillips ($96 million).

Andy Serkis is Alfred in The Batman
Image via Warner Bros.

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In terms of critical and fan appreciation, however, Reeves’ three-hour noir-inspired take on the Caped Crusader has performed better than any DC Extended Universe film to feature the character. It received an excellent A- CinemaScore from opening day audiences, and Collider’s Ross Bonaime called it the best Batman movie since The Dark Knight in his glowing review.

Internationally, the picture is poised to make $110 million by the end of its first weekend, taking its worldwide total to around $240 million. It also marks star Robert Pattinson’s defiant return to blockbuster filmmaking after his career-launching turn in the Twilight movies. He plays a younger Caped Crusader in the film, inspired by everything from the New Hollywood movies of the 1970s to Nirvana.

Overall, the weekend delivered the goods, with total business up by 41% in comparison to the same weekend in 2019. With all titles doing around $165 million combined, it marks a 169% increase weekend-to-weekend increase.

Slipping to the number two spot after two weeks at the summit, Sony’s Uncharted made $10 million in its third weekend, taking its running domestic total to over $100 million. With $6 million this weekend, Channing Tatum and Reid Carolin’s directorial debut, the crowd-pleasing canine drama Dog, finished at the number three spot. The film has made over $40 million against a reported $15 million budget, which marks a solid win for Tatum and serves as great validation for his star power.

Sony’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, which had been dominating the box office nearly every day for over two months, made $4.3 million this weekend for a fourth-place finish. The film has broken several records already—pandemic era and otherwise—and is now setting its sights on becoming only the third film in history to make more than $800 million at the domestic box office, after Avengers: Endgame ($858 million) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936 million).

The top five was rounded out by Kenneth Branagh’s second Agatha Christie adaptation, Death on the Nile. The old-fashioned murder mystery made $2.6 million this weekend, taking its domestic total to $37 million. That’s not great, considering the film’s hefty $90 million budget, and the fact that Branagh’s first Christie adaptation—Murder on the Orient Express—made over $100 million domestically in 2017. Ah, well, Branagh will have to settle for all the Oscars attention his 2021 film Belfast is getting.

The Batman will likely repeat at the top of the box office next weekend, and theoretically, the next several weekends. At least until Sony debuts its long-delayed anti-hero film Morbius in theaters in April. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.