Box Office: 'The Batman' Rules Again, Crosses $300 Million in North America

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Box Office: ‘The Batman’ Rules Again, Crosses $300 Million in North America

Published

2 years ago

March 20, 2022

Robert Pattinson’s gritty superhero adventure “The Batman” is the No. 1 movie at the domestic box office for the third weekend in a row.

That feat is not surprising because March has been relatively light in terms of new releases. But even though there hasn’t been much competition, “The Batman” has managed impressive week-to-week holds. The movie collected $36.8 million from 4,302 theaters between Friday and Sunday, a 45% decline from last weekend.

Those ticket sales push “The Batman” past $300 million in North America, making the comic book adaptation only the second pandemic-era movie to cross that benchmark.

Two new movies opened nationwide, but Funimation’s manga adaptation “Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie” and A24’s slasher thriller “X” did not pose a threat to “The Batman.”

In second place on domestic box office charts, the PG-13 “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” scored an impressive $17.6 million from 2,340 locations in its debut. Anime films have been increasingly popular in North America, and Funimation, which recently rebranded as Crunchyroll and is mostly owned by Sony Pictures, has been at the forefront. Last spring, the film company opened “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train” to $21.2 million, a huge result at a time when cinemas were operating at reduced capacity.

“This is a terrific opening,” says David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Entertainment Research. “Reviews are exceptional for this and for all of Funimation/Crunchyroll movies. They have not missed.”

“X” landed in fourth place with $4.2 million from 2,865 venues, a quieter start given the loud praise after its South by Southwest premiere.

However, Gross points out, “Horror is not expensive to make — clever cinematography, editing and sound design go a very long way. ‘X’ should recover its costs and make a few dollars after all ancillary money is counted.”

Ti West wrote and directed “X,” which follows actors making an adult film in rural Texas. But once their reclusive hosts, an elderly couple, catches the guests in the act, and things get messy.

Variety’s chief film critic Owen Gleiberman promises that “X” will “earn your fear.” He calls the movie “a deliberate, loving, and meticulous homage that isn’t simply trying to cash in on the legacy of the greatest horror film of the last half century.”

Tom Holland’s video game adaptation “Uncharted,” now in its fifth weekend of release, pulled ahead of “X” on box office charts to secure third place. The Sony Pictures action-adventure scored $8 million from 3,700 theaters, taking “Uncharted” to $125.8 million at the domestic box office.

Channing Tatum’s canine adventure “Dog” took the No. 5 spot, pushing “Spider-Man: No Way Home” out of the top five for the first time in 14 weeks.

“Dog” lapped up $4 million from 3,307 locations, bringing the film’s North American total to $54 million. It’s a great result for MGM’s road-trip buddy comedy, which cost only $15 million to make. And it’s encouraging evidence that studios can still make non-superhero movies that turn a profit — as long as budgets don’t get out of hand.

And “Spider-Man: No Way Home” — even after three and a half months on the big screen — was no slouch, pulling in $3.2 million from 2,585 screens. After this weekend, the comic book epic has generated $797.56 million at the domestic box office. It’s only a stones throw from becoming the third movie in history to cross $800 million in North America following “Avengers: Endgame” ($858 million) and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($936 million).

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Jimmy Butler steals the show on NBA media day with ‘emo’ phase look following Damian Lillard’s trade to the Milwaukee Bucks – CNN

Published

2 hours ago

October 3, 2023

Harry Miller

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Social media traffic to top news sites craters

Published

4 hours ago

October 3, 2023

Harry Miller

Traffic referrals to the top global news sites from Meta’s Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, has collapsed over the past year, according to data from Similarweb.

Why it matters: Website business models that depended on clicks from social media are now broken.

What’s happening: Regulatory pressure and free speech concerns have pushed tech giants to abandon efforts to elevate quality information, leaving the public more susceptible to misinformation ahead of the 2024 election.

Meanwhile, news companies are scrambling to find business solutions while simultaneously fighting to protect their work in the AI era.

The big picture: While the news industry has known this day would come, many are still unprepared.

A slower ad market and less reliable traffic contributed to a record number of media job cuts this year.
Efforts to reach voters with trusted information are becoming more difficult as tech platforms lean into viral trends, instead of quality news.

Yes, but: Disruption is often a catalyst for change.

The over-reliance on social media traffic kept news publishers from focusing on building stronger consumer products of their own.
Publishers are better prepared now to defend their intellectual property in the AI era having learned from their mistakes of being too heavily reliant on third parties for survival.

Go deeper: Social media news consumption slows globally

Go deeper

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is unlikely to get a lifeline from across the aisle as he fights to keep his job, according to interviews with and statements from nearly two dozen House Democrats.

Why it matters: If a half dozen Republicans support the motion to vacate introduced by right-wing Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), which is set for a vote on Tuesday afternoon, McCarthy will need Democratic votes to survive.

Data: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Chart: Axios Visuals

For all the signs of a cooling economy, employers sure had an awful lot of open jobs as summer came to an end, according to a shocker of a labor market report out Tuesday. But it’s probably sending a misleading signal.

Driving the news: Employers reported having 9.6 million job openings at the end of August, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, up 690,000 from July, driven by a particularly large surge in professional and business services openings.

United Auto Workers members and supporters on a picket line outside the Ford Motor Co. Chicago Assembly Plant in Chicago, Ill., on Sept. 30. Photo: Taylor Glascock/Getty Images

Ford and General Motors laid off 500 more people after the United Auto Workers widened its historic strike last week, the automakers confirmed to Axios Tuesday.

Why it matters: Roughly 3,000 workers have been impacted by layoffs since the UAW strike against the Detroit Three began last month.

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India police raid homes of NewsClick journalists in illegal funding probe

Published

5 hours ago

October 3, 2023

Harry Miller

Police in India have arrested a prominent journalist and founder of a news website under a stringent anti-terror law over allegations of receiving foreign money for pro-China propaganda.

NewsClick’s founder and editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha was arrested on Tuesday evening under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and criminal conspiracy charges, local media reports said.

Journalist Amit Chakravarty was also arrested in the same case, the reports added.

The arrests came after the office of the New Delhi-based news portal and homes of several journalists and writers linked to it were raided as part of an investigation into suspected illegal foreign funding of the media company. Laptops and mobile phones were taken away as part of the probe.

“A special investigations team launched a search operation to identify all those individuals who were possibly getting funds from overseas to run a media group with the main agenda of spreading foreign propaganda,” said a home ministry official overseeing the raids by the federally-controlled Delhi Police.

Indian authorities registered a case against NewsClick and its journalists on August 17, days after a New York Times report alleged the website had received funds from an American millionaire who, the Times wrote, funded the spread of “Chinese propaganda”. NewsClick denied the charges.

The raids on Tuesday were conducted at more than a dozen homes of journalists and some other writers linked to NewsClick.

A home ministry official said the raids were part of an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate, India’s financial crime control agency, into suspected money laundering by NewsClick, whose office was also sealed by the Delhi Police.

In a statement, the police said 37 male suspects were questioned at the NewsClick office while nine female suspects were questioned at their residences.

Thirty locations connected with the portal and its journalists were searched, the police said. Among those questioned were journalists Urmilesh, Aunindyo Chakravarty, Abhisar Sharma, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and historian Sohail Hashmi.

NewsClick officials were not immediately available for comment. The company’s website says it reports on news from India and elsewhere with a focus on “progressive movements”.

NewsClick founder Purkayastha said at the time the allegations were not new and that the organisation would respond to them in court.

The Press Club of India said it was deeply concerned by the raids. A group of journalists has planned a protest march in New Delhi on Wednesday.

‘Coercive actions’

A statement from the INDIA alliance, a coalition of 28 opposition political parties, said in the last nine years, the government has deliberately persecuted and suppressed the media by using different investigative agencies.

“Even if you were … to believe these allegations at worst you could have targeted the management of the website, but what we are seeing now is that even junior employees are getting raided, even contributors are getting raided,” Shoaib Daniyal, political editor at the Scroll news website, told Al Jazeera.

“India has an extremely draconian terror law regime where people can be arrested and locked away for years without trial,” he added.

A spokesperson from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the raids were justified as foreign funding to media groups must be assessed by investigating agencies.

India has fallen to 161st rank in the World Press Freedom Index, an annual ranking by non-profit Reporters Without Borders, from 150th last year, its lowest ever. Modi’s government rejects the group’s rankings, questioning its methodology, and says India has a vibrant and free press.

A few months ago, Indian tax authorities raided BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai, shortly after the British broadcaster released a documentary that was critical of Modi.

Ties between India and China have been strained since 2020, when clashes between the two neighbours’ militaries in a disputed border area killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese servicemen.

Since then, New Delhi has banned many Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok, and launched tax investigations into some Chinese mobile phone companies.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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