Box Office Discussion: "Knock" Up

 Knock at the Cabin and 80 For Brady proves to be a knock on The Way of Water.

Seven weeks at the top of the box office is incredibly impressive.  Only 14 movies have pulled it off since reliable box office tracking began in the early 1980s, and none in over a decade since Avatar pulled the feat off in late 2009 and early 2010.  13 years later, Avatar: The Way of Water followed its predecessor's path almost exactly, opening the weekend before Christmas and dominating the box office all the way through January, before finally ceding the top spot in early February.

The film that finally took down the Na'vi was Knock at the Cabin, M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller, in which a quartet, including Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint, arrive at the titular cabin to force the family staying there to make an awful choice to potentially save the world.  It opened to a solid $14.1 million.  While that's down considerably from the openings of his two pre-pandemic hits Split and Glass, it's only a little off the opening of his 2021 thriller Old.  It's a much better opening than the last Dave Bautista vehicle to get a wide release, the largely forgotten 2019 action comedy Stuber.  Word of mouth has been mixed-to-negative, so don't expect Cabin to stick around for long, but it should end its run fairly profitable.

Beating expectations to open in second is 80 for Brady, the latest in what I like to call the "Geezers Rediscover Life!" genre, which for several years was largely dominated by male-driven films, most of which seemed to co-star Morgan Freeman, but now seem to mostly cater to women-driven films, most of which star Diane Keaton and/or Jane Fonda.  Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field, and Rita Moreno are the quartet in this one, playing ardent Tom Brady fans trying to get into Super Bowl LI in 2017 (Brady co-stars as himself and also produced).  It opened to a surprisingly healthy $12.7 million, and is the type of movie that could end up playing for weeks.

Avatar falls to third, taking in another $11.3 million for a total of $637 million.  That's enough for it to pass The Avengers to hit the all-time domestic Top 10.  Top Gun: Maverick is now roughly $80 million away.

Mega-popular Korean boy band BTS had another concert beam directly to theaters this weekend.  BTS: Yet to Come in Cinemas took in $8 million, another nice payday for the group.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish continues its strong run, earning $7.9 million for a total of $151.2 million.  It seems likely to pass Sing 2's $162.8 million in the next week or two to become the second-highest-grossing animated movie of the pandemic era.

A Man Called Otto brought in $4.3 million for a total of $53.1 million. M3GAN continues to inch toward $100 million, taking in $3.8 million for a total of $87.6 million.  Missing came up with $3.7 million for a total of $23 million.

Two and a half months after the first two episodes of the religious drama The Chosen earned nearly $9 million over a weekend after being released to theaters ahead of their streaming debut, the season finale didn't fair quite as well.  The Chosen Season 3 Finale could only muster up $3.6 million, though it did earn $5.3 million total since its release last Wednesday.

Rounding out the Top 10, Indian thriller Pathaan had an expected sharp drop, taking in $2.7 million for a ten-day total of $14.3 million.

Outside the Top Ten, the animated film The Amazing Maurice could only find limited business, taking in $1.5 million for 12th.  Also outside the Top 10, Infinity Pool had a ten-day total of $4.3 million, and The Wandering Earth II had a ten-day total of $4.1 million.

Super Bowl weekend is a frame Hollywood typically avoids, but with the game now having moved to the second Sunday in February, it's also usually played on Valentine's Day weekend.  Last year, a full slate of new movies was released to mixed reactions.  This year, Hollywood is again playing it safe with the main attraction being the 25th anniversary re-release of Titanic, which spent 15 weeks on top of the box office and finished its run as the highest-grossing film of all time (it is now 8th on the list).  Also debuting is Magic Mike's Last Dance, which sees Channing Tatum's former exotic dancer (the only character from either of the first two movies to return for this one) head to London with Salma Hayek.  Steven Soderbergh, who did not direct the second one, returns behind the camera for this one.  Will Titanic sail back to the top of the charts?  Will Mike dance his way to #1?  Or will a holdover (Knock at the Cabin, 80 for Brady, Avatar, Puss in Boots) swoop in and take the top for themselves?  We'll find out next week.