នៅក្នុងយុគសម័យនៃរឿងភាគបន្តបន្ទាប់ 'The Batman' គឺជា Blockbuster Reboot

Batman has earned another $8.465 million domestically on Wednesday, bringing its six-day cume to $164.071 million and its global cume to around $318 million. It’s still legging out, in terms of weekend-to-day six multipliers, on par with Captain Marvel និង បុរស​ដែកថែប. A post-debut run like បុរស​ដែកថែប (2.27 x its $128 million debut) would get Batman to around $305 million, which would be good enough on a $185 million budget. Yes, there is a certain irony in potentially identical earnings for Batman និង បុរស​ដែកថែប ($291 million domestic/$668 million worldwide) being seen as a success for the 2022 flick but a slight disappointment for the 2013 flick. To be fair, បុរស​ដែកថែប cost around $225 million and isn’t responsible for an entire cinematic universe. Batman may become, by default, one of the few outright successful franchise reboots.

Prior to Tom Holland’s អង្គការ SPIDER របស់ Man: ការវិលត្រឡប់មកវិញ ($334 million domestic and $881 million in 2017), which had the luxury of being part of the ongoing MCU and had Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man in a co-starring role, Henry Cavill’s បុរស​ដែកថែប was essentially the biggest-grossing straight-up reboot ever in North America. Thanks to the success of Batman ចាប់ផ្តើម in 2005, and especially the $1 billion-plus triumph of Knight ដោយងងឹត in 2008, Sony rebooted their already-successful Toby Maguire-led Spider-Man franchise with what would become Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man in summer 2012. However, while that development opened the floodgates for every studio to arbitrarily reboot every vaguely popular or previously successful IP, most reboots haven’t been terribly successful. Even the ones that succeeded only did so for a brief period of time. The notion of a successful franchise reboot has mostly been a mirage.

The Spider Spider-Man ដ៏អស្ចារ្យ had one decently-performing installment ($264 million domestic and $765 million worldwide on a too-expensive $235 million budget) before crashing to earth with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($202 million/$709 million on a $255 million budget). Chris Nolan’s Christian Bale-starring origin story earned just $205 million domestic and $371 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. We only got Knight ដោយងងឹត ដោយសារតែ Batman ចាប់ផ្តើម had rave reviews, strong legs and a healthy post-theatrical (DVD, cable, etc.) afterlife. Paramount thought they had a winner with J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, and the reboot did earn $256 million domestic in summer 2009. But the $150 million movie “only” earned $385 million worldwide and Star Trek ចូលទៅក្នុងភាពងងឹត only earned $229 million domestic and $487 million worldwide in 2013 on a $190 million budget. ស្តារ Trek លើស bombed in 2016 with $338 million on a $185 million budget.

Sony’s attempts to reboot Ghostbusters (with the $144 million-budgeted ឆ្លើយការហៅ) earned just $229 million worldwide, while reboots disguised as sequels like Men in Black International, Girl in the Spider’s Web និង ទេវតាឆាលី stumbled and outright remakes like Robocop និង ការប្រមូលសរុប failed to spawn franchises. Even the deluge of 2000’s-era horror remakes didn’t quite work out as franchise-builders. Even if they worked once (The Hills Have Eyes, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare On Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.), the sequels either didn’t materialize or underwhelmed. None of them made it to “part three.” Ditto recent remakes of Child’s Play, Poltergeist, Point Break និង Flatliners. Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood and Taron Egerton’s Robin Hood both stumbled in 2010 and 2018, and Universal killed an entire Dark Universe with a mediocre reboot of សាកសព. Even Tom Cruise couldn’t make that mediocre reboot fly.

Complicated discourse notwithstanding, Snyder, Nolan and David Goyer’s បុរស​ដែកថែប did not launch a successful Superman series and only kinda-sorta launched what we now know as the DC Films universe. If the Superman story is a Moses parable (Snyder’s film is even a skewed version of និក្ខមនំ where “Moses” sides with the Egyptians against “God”), then perhaps Superman died prematurely before he could see his DC brethren (Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Shazam, and now Batman) reach the promised land. There are exceptions, of course. Sony’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was a reboot disguised as a sequel which earned $962 million and turned a decades-old B-level hit into an A-level franchise. The one unmitigated reboot success remains the 007 series, which notched five massively successful ($3.965 billion worldwide) Daniel Craig-starring installments. It’s a rare reboot that left it franchise in better shape then it found it.

There is a great irony in Hollywood’s reboot obsession being predicated on Chris Nolan’s acclaimed Dark Knight films (which only went into hyper drive after the sequel and intentionally existed as a stand-alone trilogy) and Marc Webb’s បុរសម្នាក់ពីងពាងអស្ចារ្យ films (which absolutely failed to replicate the success of Sam Raimi’s groundbreaking/trendsetting $2.5 billion-grossing trilogy or become the next Dark Knight/Avengers-type breakout). The real success story has been found in legacy sequels like (among others) Creed, The Force Awakens, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. These are loose remakes of the first films which combined franchise vets with younger, more inclusive/diverse protagonists which straddled the line between appealing to new viewers and not pissing off the older, nostalgia-driven fan bases. Sure, ស្ថានីយ: វាសនាខ្មៅ និង ថ្ងៃឯករាជ្យ: ការរស់ឡើងវិញ fumbled the ball, but Ghostbusters: Afterlife និង បុណ្យ Halloween rejuvenated seemingly dead IP.

នោះហើយជាអ្វីដែលធ្វើឱ្យ Batman pretty damn unique. Batman is a total clean slate restart, sans even the kind of loose connective tissue offered to the likes of Deadpool (which contains the same actor who played the role in ដើមកំណើត X-Men Wolverine and exists within that franchise’s loose continuity) and Star Trek (which used time-travel hijinks to create a new continuity without invalidating the previous one). It didn’t even exist within the DC Films continuity, although oddly that may have been as much of a selling point to certain demographics as was ទំព័រដើម’s inclusion in the MCU. It’s just “another Batman movie,” complete with villains we’ve seen before, story beats we’ve seen before and frankly a general tone/sensibility not far off from Nolan’s groundbreaking trilogy. It again makes me wonder out loud if បុរសម្នាក់ពីងពាងអស្ចារ្យ might have worked if it were cheaper and less continuity-obsessed.

Batman is among the more popular marquee characters on the planet, and we can debate to what extent viewer dissatisfaction with Superman ជួបរឿង Batman និង League របស់តុលាការ did anywhere near the damage done by ប៊េននិងរ៉ូប៊ីន seven years prior to Batman ចាប់ផ្តើម។ គ្រាន់តែជា Casino Royale rebooted the James Bond films after ស្លាប់ថ្ងៃផ្សេងទៀត set franchise-specific records ($160 million domestic and $437 million worldwide in 2002) and បុរសម្នាក់ពីងពាងអស្ចារ្យ came about after Spider-Man 3 earned $890 million in 2007. Maybe a solo Batman movie was always going to be a relative mega-hit no matter the circumstances. We’ll see where Batman ends up in comparison (inflation aside for now) to Casino Royale, Spider-Man: Homecoming និង បុរស​ដែកថែប. Whether it ends up closer worldwide to បុរស​ដែកថែប or Spider-Man: ការត្រលប់មកផ្ទះវិញ, Batman is an all-too rare example of a successful franchise reboot.