The Batman becomes second-biggest pandemic debut by earning £97.2m at box office

Robert Pattinson’s The Batman has become the second-biggest pandemic debut by earning $128m (£97.2m) at the domestic box office in the US.

The film, directed by Matt Reeves, also marked the best opening weekend of 2022.

The only other movie to have crossed the $100m mark in a single weekend during the pandemic is Marvel’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The film, which also features Zoë Kravitz and Paul Dano, additionally earned $120m (£90.8) in overseas sales, pushing its worldwide grossing to nearly $250m (£189m).

The Independent’s Clarrise Loughrey gave the film four out of five stars.

“The Batman is a very good Batman film. To think of it as anything more only leads to delusion or disappointment. It also undermines the more subtle work at play in Reeves’s film, which remains faithful to the character’s core iconography – bat ears, elaborate gadgets, encroaching darkness – while simultaneously interrogating its usefulness,” she wrote in her review.

“Comparatively, it’s pitched somewhere between Christopher Nolan and Tim Burton – with one foot in our reality, and the other planted in a Gothic noir aesthetic derived partially from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One comics,” Loughrey added.

The president of domestic distribution at Warner Bros, Jeff Goldstein, told Variety that “it’s fun to see the public really embrace the movie”.

“Since the movie is three hours long, it became appointment viewing. That bodes well for its run on the big screen. It helps that the word of mouth is so strong,” he said.

Rich Gelfond, the CEO of Imax, added: “In its first theatrical exclusive blockbuster release in more than a year, Warner Bros proved the power of a theatrical-first approach, and that great execution on a creative launch plan is the best way to drive long-term value.”