Box Office: ‘The Batman’ Tops $350 Million To Pass ‘American Sniper’

The Batman has passed $350 million in domestic grosses with around $1 million in Monday earnings. Warner Bros.' comic book actioner is now fifth-biggest domestic earner after earning $185 million. The $350.2 million lifetime gross of Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, starring Bradley Cooper, passed by the end of this sentence. It is now behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, Wonder Woman, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Dark Knight.

Batman v Superman has already sold more tickets than Batman Begins, Batman & Robin, and the film has an adjusted domestic earnings of $350 million. It will pass Batman Returns in the coming days, and may end up tied or just below the total of Batman Forever. The Batman is playing like a mid-90s Batman movie. The Batman movies did not top the box office in their day.

In the first three months of the year, there has been a lot of talk about how little movie theaters have seen. Studios hold their prized cows for streaming platforms. In the last six years, the definition of a must-see theatrical has grown smaller. The kind of films that used to open alongside Batman movies now barely exist.

Warner Bros. has been at the forefront of overestimating the taste of the American public. The Sun is Also A Star, Blinded By the Light, Motherless Brooklyn, The Kitchen, The Good Liar, Richard Jewel, and The Way Back were released in 2019. They were still releasing the likes of the Oscar-winning Judas and the Black Messiah, Will Smith's Oscar-winning movie In the Heights, even though Covid had a controversial plan.

If we see fewer of those films at a theatrical level from the Dream Factory going forward, it's not like I haven't been screaming at the top of my lungs about this over the last several years. WB has two more films in the works, one in June and the other in September. Most of WB's theatrical line-up is comprised of intellectual property plays, which is a matter of supply and demand.

The Batman's box office bounty is still impressive. Every major theatrical release has been turned into an underdog due to covid variables and streaming pressures. Captain America: The Winter Soldier will pass the global gross of Batman sometime today. DC may have returned to its pre- Covid strength, as it was matching Marvel in terms of box office strength with Batman and Wonder Woman holding their own compared to Black Panther and Captain Marvel. If Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness doesn't pass The Batman's $775 million global gross, we may have to discuss whether there is a new king in town.