Missing has a solid opening, while Avatar begins to lose some altitude.
Another week, another win for Avatar: The Way of Water. It becomes the first film to spend six weeks on top of the box office since Spider-Man: No Way Home had a similar January romp last year, and the first to spend six straight weeks up there since the original Avatar back in 2010 (Spidey's run was interrupted by Scream for one week). Indeed, Avatar's run is probably more impressive than Spider-Man's, as Avatar has had considerably more competition than Spidey, which only really had to deal with Scream and Sing 2 until February.
Still, there are signs that the blockbuster, despite just earning 4 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, might be beginning to fade. It took in $20.1 million, the 7th best 6th weekend of all time, and finished the weekend just short of crossing $600 million, hitting $598.4 million. That puts it only about $120 million behind Top Gun: Maverick, and it still has an excellent chance of making it. But Top Gun's 6th weekend was $25.9 million, and the gap between their weekend totals might just start growing wider as Avatar hits February and a very promising lineup. Plus, Top Gun will continue to turn in much better weekday totals than Avatar, one of the advantages of playing during the summer. That said, Avatar currently has a $34 million lead over Top Gun through both film's sixth weekend, and that's a lot of ground to make up, particularly at this stage in the run. I still think Avatar will likely take the 2022 crown when all is said and done, but it will be close.
Speaking of catching up, the newly-Oscar nominated Puss in Boots: The Last Wish ended its opening weekend roughly $20 million behind where the aforementioned Sing 2 was after its opening weekend. 4 weeks later, it has grossed $126.8 million, only a couple million behind where Sing was, and with a weekend gross of $11.8 million, more than twice what Sing made last year on its fifth weekend, there's no reason to think Puss won't eventually top Sing's $162.8 million. Sing did manage to amass its fortune by staying in the Top 10 for 14 weeks, until late March. However, with the next family movie, Super Mario Bros., not opening until early April, Puss might just be able to equal that feat.
Horror hit M3GAN continues its strong January performance, earning $9.7 million for a gross of $73.2 million. It's fading a bit faster than Smile did last fall, and there's a chance it might miss $100 million. Still, it is proving to be a solid, and very profitable, hit.
Opening in fourth, the online thriller Missing had a good start, taking in $9.2 million, already more than the film's $7 million budget. That's a bit better than its spiritual predecessor, Searching, opened wide to in 2018. This opening suggests that Missing might make around $30 million, which would be a very nice total for this one.
Tom Hanks continues to draw in audiences for A Man Called Otto, which took in $8.8 million in its second wide weekend, for a total of $35.2 million. This one is heading to north of $50 million, maybe to $60 or even $70 million.
Plane is already beginning to run out of runway, as it falls nearly 50% to $5.3 million. Its ten-day total is $19.5 million, and is likely to stop short of $30 million.
The party is definitely over at House Party, which fell nearly 60% from its already mediocre opening, to $1.7 million. Its ten-day total is $7.1 million, and it is highly likely to finish below $10 million. Luckily, the film is quite cheap, having been made to be an HBO Max premiere.
After the solid success of cinematic spin-offs of amines Demon Slayer, Dragon Ball, Jujutsu Kaisen, and One Piece, it's not surprising that the movie versions of more obscure anime series are attempting wide releases themselves. The bizarrely titled That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime couldn't find a big audience for its movie version, Scarlet Bond, which could only muster up $1.6 million. Given how front-loaded anime films tend to be, this one could easily end up under $3 million.
Rounding out the Top 10 are two Oscar nominees. 5-time nominee Black Panther: Wakanda Forever celebrated its 11th weekend on the chart with $1.4 million for a total of $451.8 million. 3-time nominee The Whale brought in $1.3 million for a total of $13.2 million. While Wakanda has largely played out (and will be debuting on Disney+ next week), The Whale could see a nice bump next weekend thanks to the nominations for stars Brendan Fraser and Hong Chau.
This weekend looks to be fairly quiet, with Avatar probably cruising to its seventh--and potentially final--weekend win. The biggest openers are the bizarre body horror thriller Infinity Pool, the rather generically titled virus horror Fear, and the Christian sequel Left Behind: The Antichrist, which is going the Fathom route of limited screenings. Several Oscar nominees are also returning to theaters, including The Fabelmans, Top Gun: Maverick, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. Will any of them come within $10 million of Avatar? Could the long-running Puss in Boots score a huge upset and take the top spot? We'll find out next week.
No comments:
Post a Comment