Batman’s $47m fails to stop box-office nosedive
Batman Begins debuted as the top movie with $46.9 million, while overall movie revenues skidded for the 17th straight weekend, tying a slide in 1985 that had been the longest box-office decline since records on movie grosses began.
The slump may be a sign that more people are watching movies at home. An Associated Press-AOL poll last week found that 73% of adults prefer watching movies on DVD, videotape or pay-per-view rather than going to the cinema.
Studio executives blame the downturn on a comparatively weak line-up of movies this year and say it will take more time to determine if DVDs and other home-entertainment options are eroding theatre business.
Movie revenues in the US this year are down 6.4% compared to 2004.
Batman Begins bumped the previous weekend’s top film, Mr and Mrs Smith, to second place with $27.3m, raising its 10-day total to $98m.
The weekend’s only other new wide release, Hilary Duff’s The Perfect Man, opened with a weak $5.5m, less than half the $13.6m debut for the teen queen’s 2004 romance A Cinderella Story.
Since opening on Wednesday, Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale as the DC Comics hero in his early days, grossed $71.1m. The cast also includes Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Katie Holmes and Irish actor Cillian Murphy.
The film has been largely panned by the critics. Christy Lemire of Associated Press said of Christian Bale as Batman: “While Bale is beautiful, chiselled and self-possessed, he has a steely detachment behind his eyes - a quality that served him well in the starring role in American Psycho, but renders him almost passionless here.
On female interest and latest Tom Cruise squeeze Katie Holmes, Lemire said: “But the weakest link of all is Katie Holmes as Bruce’s childhood friend and vague love interest, Rachel Dawes.
“It is simply too difficult to accept the former Dawson’s Creek star, with her exceedingly youthful good looks and little-girl voice, as a tough-as-nails assistant district attorney who represents one of the last bastions of morality in this decaying urban cesspool.
Warner Bros expects Batman Begins to finish its first week with $85m, compared to a range of $59m to $77m for the previous Batman movies in their first week.
