The Friends reunion which came out on HBO Max in 2021 had 5.3 million viewers in the first 24 hours of release.

In the first month, it was watched by 29% of streaming households and that actually put it tied with Wonder Woman 1984, which was an HBO Max original movie originally designed for theaters that had a 200 million dollar budget.

The Friends reunion special was pretty low budget, costing 18 million dollars to pay each of the main cast 3 million each for a return and other costs put it at an estimated 30 million to produce.

Meaning it had the exact same impact as Wonder Woman, a sequel to a popular movie that made 822 million with a budget nearly 7x the reunion tied with it.

For Robert Pattinson’s the Batman, the budget is reported at 100 million dollars.

The general rule for studios is the marketing budget should be 50% of the budget for making the actual movie.

That means, the Batman will likely have 150 million put into it.

How a Batman documentary could work on HBO Max.

Some pretty iconic actors have played Batman.

• Michael Keaton, who is contracted to return as Batman for the Flash.
• Christian Bale who has several projects with Warner.
• Ben Affleck, contracted for a cameo in the Flash.
• Kevin Conroy, who was the main voice actor.
• Robert Pattinson, who is the new Batman.

Not to mention some major actors involved in side roles.

Three Catwoman actresses still alive.

• Michelle Pfieffer
• Anne Hathaway
• Zoey Kravtiz

Four notable Joker actors

• Jack Nicholson
• Mark Hamill
• Joaquin Phoenix
• Jared Leto

On top of that, tons of other successful actors who’ve joined Batman in other roles, such as Danny Devito, Tom Hardy, Liam Neeson, Marion Coltiard and others who’d likely not be that hard to get them to show up.

This is an example of duel marketing Warner & Disney should look at for cross promoting streaming services as well as movies going into theaters.

Just a simple documentary bringing in the new cast of the Batman and having each actor sit in a room with previous actors to play that role likely would be a hit comparable to the Friends & Harry Potter reunions, which both went number one.

Also, the title is extremely easy to do.

“I’m Batman”

And this is something studios should explore doing passed just traditional advertising with commercials, signs and other methods which don’t really seem to be gathering as much interest as before.

Kind of a random thought, but may be worth it for studios to think on for future projects.