By Lindsey Bahr, AP Film Writer
"The Batman" is still going strong three weeks into its theatrical run, with a tight grip on the top spot at the box office.
Robert Pattinson's debut as the Dark Knight earned an additional $36.8 million over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday. It also slid past the $300 million mark ahead of projections.
The Warner Bros. film is the highest grossing movie of 2022 and the second highest since the beginning of the pandemic (first place goes to "Spider-Man: No Way Home").
"The Batman," directed by Matt Reeves, also picked up $49.1 million internationally this weekend, bringing its global total to $598.1 million. The only place "The Batman" seems to be stumbling is in China where it earned $12.1 million in its first weekend. But about 43% of cinemas in China are closed due to the pandemic and "The Batman" still did slightly better than "Unchartered" which also opened there this weekend to $10.3 million.
"The Batman" cost an estimated $200 million to make, not counting the many millions spent on marketing. But it is already a win for Warner Bros., which took at hit at the box office in 2021 because all of its films were released simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max.
It also helps that marketplace competition has been slim. The biggest competitor this weekend was the anime "Jujutsu Kaisen 0," which was released by Crunchyroll and Funimation, and took in an estimated $17.7 million in its first weekend in North America, where it was playing on 2,748 screens. The Japanese film is based on a best-selling manga and available to watch dubbed or with subtitles.
"Fans made this movie a big hit this weekend," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. "It shows how passionate fans of anime are and how beautiful these films are when presented on the big screen."
The horror film "X" also debuted this weekend on 2,865 screens and is projected to gross around $4.4 million. Directed by Ti West and distributed by A24, "X" is about a group of people who are terrorized while shooting a pornographic film.
Focus Features launched the crime drama "The Outfit," starring Mark Rylance in 1,324 locations. It made an estimated $1.5 million. And outside of the top 10, Vertical Entertainment and Roadside Attractions had "Alice," the Sundance breakout about an enslaved woman who gets transported to 1973, which made $176,120 from 170 locations.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.
1. "The Batman," $36.8 million.
2. "Jujutsu Kaisen O," $17.7 million.
3. "Uncharted," $8 million.
4. "X," $4.4 million.
5. "Dog," $4.1 million.
6. "Spider-Man: No Way Home," $3.2 million.
7. "Death on the Nile," $1.7 million.
8. "The Outfit," $1.5 million.
9. "The Kashmir Files," $1.5 million.
10. "Sing 2," $1.5 million.
Forsman & Bodenfors Shifts Its Singapore Group Creative Director Ivan Guerra to Its NYC Hub
Forsman & Bodenfors (F&B) has expanded its creative leadership in New York by relocating longtime group creative director Ivan Guerra from the Singapore office to the Big Apple to support a quickly growing list of new client wins.
As a group creative director in Singapore, Guerra racked up numerous accolades and participated in a myriad of new business wins that fueled the agency’s growth year over year. He explained why now was the right time to come back to the states, adding more nuance in the process. ”Singapore is the business hub of Asia, New York is the business hub of the world,” he said. “Our office in Singapore was small when I arrived. Since then, we’ve more than tripled in size, and became the [number one] most creative agency in the country, and work with more and bigger clients than ever before. There’s always more to be done, but the agency I’m leaving behind is in fantastic shape and ready to take on the world, as I know they will.”
For Guerra, there’s an opportunity to replicate in New York the success he had in Singapore. During his career, he repositioned and promoted businesses and products across a wide variety of markets and industries including P&G, Coca-Cola and Booking.com. Some of his well-known work includes a campaign that increased Samsung’s sales in the Middle East by almost 200%, one of the most iconic films in the history of Converse, Verizon’s most successful sports partnership program “Data Dunk” with the NBA, and a “Proud Whopper” campaign in 2014 that reignited Burger King and garnered 13 Cannes Lions and a Grand Clio.
Coming back to New York after 15 years in the business, including a stint where he spent time at the likes of top-shelf agencies like R/GA,... Read More