Box Office Report: ‘Morbius’ Underperforms, ‘The Batman’ Crosses $700M Worldwide
The box office, both in North America and in overseas territories, is in full recovery mode. As far as theaters are concerned, the only problem the pandemic represents anymore is the competition from streaming. Let’s take a look at this weekend’s numbers.
Morbius opened in North America and 62 other international markets, and did to very low numbers for a comic-book movie, but that is not necessarily the pandemic’s fault. The movie had a production budget of $75 million, and brought in $39.1M in the States, with the worldwide total being $84M during its first three days. Now, under normal circumstances, the movie would probably go on to become profitable in the next couple of weeks, and Sony would be greenlighting a second one, hoping for better reviews. It is unknown how much it cost the studio to delay the movie as many times as they did, so it might actually be harder for them to break even on this one.
The reasons behind a below-$40M opening for a comic-book movie in this day and age are more than obvious. The movie didn’t look any good. The marketing machine has been circulating for over two years, meaning that this was another one of those cursed projects like New Mutants, and most people probably thought this had been released already despite the fact that Sony did try very hard this past month to put Morbius marketing everywhere.
Of course, the fact that both the director and the official Sony Pictures Twitter account spoiled the ending of the movie a week before it released in theaters didn’t help. The same goes for many of the people involved with the movie being very outspoken about the fact this was a disaster. Moreover, word-of-mouth hasn’t been this bad for a comic-book movie in a long time. Even Venom: Let There Be Carnage had its fans (and that is a fact, they wouldn’t have cracked $500M worldwide in the middle of a global pandemic otherwise). But Sony just couldn’t trick us with this one.
It remains to be seen what lesson the studio reads from this one. It’s very possible that executives will be satisfied with the results, especially if they manage to break even on a movie that was supposed to be released in July 2020. If they consider it a disappointment, will they blame it on the pandemic or the fact the movie just didn’t work? The Rotten Tomatoes critic score hasn’t been this low for a superhero movie in a long time, but audiences are not so critical. 70% of the registered viewers on Rotten Tomatoes give it a thumbs up, and moviegoers gave it a C+ on Cinemascore. It’s not great, but it’s not the F that most critics gave it.
We don’t know yet what Sony’s plans for the character going forward are, but the studio is very much moving forward with more movies from Marvel characters. A Madame Web project is currently in active development and could be shooting as soon as this year, and Amy Pascal said in December that Venom 3 was in the early stages of development. A Kraven the Hunter movie is also set to start principal photography this spring, and plans to release it in January 2023 are currently in place.
Morbius is Sony’s third entry in their shared cinematic universe of Marvel characters, after both Venom movies. With Morbius‘ final box office numbers still not set in stone, the studio should be happy, since the two previous movies were very profitable. We shall see what their plans for the future are…
The #2 pot at the domestic box office charts was for The Lost City, a movie that could be the ultimate example of theaters still being alive, and the movie business belonging to the exhibition industry instead of streaming. In its second week, it made $14.8M, already cracking $61.5M worldwide even though it hasn’t opened in many markets yet. Critics have been very positive on it, and the poster is the standard Photoshop collage from most Hollywood action movies. That alone should be a good enough test to see if audiences still embrace that type of theatrical experience.
It will be interesting to see how it performs worldwide once it starts opening in more markets. A $200M worldwide total is not out of the question — this would be a good sign for the studio, which produced the movie with around $70M. That is a rare number nowadays, as most movies either cost $200M or less than $20M. Yet here we are, after the first weekend of April 2022, with two mid-budget movies topping the box office charts.
The Batman, during its fifth week, took the #3 spot. But this was a key week for the movie, as it crossed $700M worldwide. At this current pace, it is unlikely it will get to $1B. The marketing team at WB will be hard at work this month trying to convince people to give the new Fantastic Beasts movie a shot, and that could detract box-office dollars from Matt Reeves’ movie. And as we enter the second half of April, let us remember the box office will probably be taking a step back to prepare for the release of the newest Marvel extravaganza: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.
Probably the best story this weekend is Michelle Yeoh’s Everything Everywhere All At Once having an outstanding run with a very limited release. It had the best theater average of the weekend, with $26,631 per theater, as it made $1.01M on just 38 theaters. The movie, which started getting a lot of buzz out of the South By Southwest Film Festival, will open wide next weekend in 1,200 theaters. We cannot wait to watch it.
Sonic 2 will be speeding into theaters next week, and after that, it will be the turn of Fantastic Beasts 3. We will be paying close attention to Sonic‘s numbers, as the first entry was the last big movie to open in theaters before the pandemic struck back in 2020, so it will be interesting to see how that franchise survived the last two years. So far, word-of-mouth is pretty good, and Paramount seem so confident in the movie they’ve already greenlit a third entry, as well as a spin-off series for Paramount Plus. Stay tuned!
Miguel Fernández is a Spanish student that has movies as his second passion in life. His favorite movie of all time is The Lord of the Rings, but he is also a huge Star Wars fan. However, fantasy movies are not his only cup of tea, as authors like Scorsese, Fincher, Kubrick or Hitchcock have been an obsession for him since he started to understand the language of filmmaking. He is that guy who will watch a black and white movie, just because it is in black and white.
