The $80 million title dropped more precipitously than the first entry on subsequent weekends and ultimately landed with just $162.8 million in North America and $266.8 million worldwide-nearly $150 million less than its predecessor. Though it debuted to a then-record $45.6 million opening weekend that June, there was criticism in some quarters over the film’s darker, more sexualized tone. By the end of its run, the film (whose budget reportedly swelled from $35 to $48 million) had brought in a gargantuan $251.1 million in North America and $411.3 million worldwide, minting a hugely lucrative new franchise for Warner Bros.īurton would return to the series with the 1992 follow-up Batman Returns, which-while certainly no failure-failed to match the box office returns of its predecessor.

When it finally debuted on June 23, Batman crushed the opening weekend record set by Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade only a month earlier, grossing a whopping $40.4 million from 2,194 theaters over the three-day frame. It was just the summer of Batman and if you were a comic book fan it was pretty hot.” People were cutting it into their fucking heads. You couldn’t turn around without seeing the Bat-Signal somewhere.

As director Kevin Smith once put it, “That summer was huge. But with box office data being spotty during those earlier decades, we’ll be kicking off this history with Burton’s game-changing mega-hit, which was supercharged by a tidal wave of fanfare in the months leading up to its release-a phenomenon that became known as “Batmania”-and preceded by a merchandising blitz that encompassed everything from Batman watches to Batman action figures to Batman bicycle shorts. That was followed nearly two decades later by 1966’s Batman, a feature-length continuation of the campy TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward.īy all accounts, those previous theatrical iterations of the Caped Crusader were commercial successes.

Though director Tim Burton’s 1989 blockbuster Batman, starring Michael Keaton, is generally regarded as the first theatrical outing for the Caped Crusader, the DC Comics superhero first appeared on the big screen in the 1940s in a pair of 15-chapter serials: Batman (1943) and Batman and Robin (1949).

Batman forever movie box office