Weekend Box Office: A $134 Million Disappointment?
Tuesday, December 20, 2022 at 1:04PM By Ben Miller
Avatar: The Way of Water made most of the money from this weekend's box office. James Cameron's follow-up to 2009's Avatar was the unsurprising winner of the weekend with $134 million. Oddly, that number is far below expectations for a supremely expensive film, which is in the realm of $250 million. That doesn't mean all is said and done for the film's commercial chances. The rest of the box office only managed $18 million. It's still realistic for The Way of Water to end up as the highest grossing film of the year not named Top Gun: Maverick.
It also helps that Way of Water is playing on more expensive IMAX and 3D screens. The film is well-regarded by critics (78% on Rotten Tomatoes) and has an A Cinemascore. If anything can have legs, it's probably this.
| Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 16th-18th 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = Recommended |
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| WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS) | LIMITED / PLATFORM |
 AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER |
 THE WHALE |
| 1 🔺★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $134.1*NEW* 4202 screens |
1 🔺 EMPIRE OF LIGHT $233k (cum. $460k) 436 screens |
| 2 BLACK PANTHER WAKANDA FOREVER $5.3 (cum. $418.9) 3380 screens |
2 SPOILER ALERT $208k (cum. $1.2) 771 screens |
| 3 VIOLENT NIGHT $5 (cum. $35) 3528 screens |
3 🔺 THE WHALE $170k (cum. $596k) 6 screens |
| 4 STRANGE WORLD $2.2 (cum. $33.8) 2870 screens |
4 THE MEAN ONE $112k (cum. $445k) 146 screens |
| 5 ★ THE MENU $1.6 (cum. $32) 1875 screens |
5 ★ THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN $101k (cum. $8.8) 165 screens |
|
6 ★ DEVOTION $780k (cum. $18.6) 2211 screens |
6 ★ TÁR $42k (cum. $5.4) 63 screens |
 THE FABELMANS |
 EMPIRE OF LIGHT |
|
7 ★ THE FABELMANS $744k (cum. $8.7) 955 screens |
7 ★ ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED (doc) $34k (cum. $218k) 48 screens |
|
8 BLACK ADAM $446k (cum. $167.7) 1304 screens |
8 THE SPARRING PARTNER $24k (cum. $121k) 11 screens |
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only 8 films are currently in wide release which is very disappointing for the holiday season. In addition to the wide releases, It's a wonderful Life got an event style reprisal on over a thousand screens. |
8 ★ DECISION TO LEAVE $16k (cum. $1.9) 23 screens |
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We keep complaining about it, but The Way of Water sucks up a lot of screens and Hollywood didn't bother to counterprogram. It's not all bad news. Darren Aronofsky's The Whale is still doing exceptional business on very limited screens, earning over $28k per screen. It finally expands this week, so we will see if it is able to make any actual box office dent.
Next Weekend: With Christmas on Sunday, the box office gets pushed out a day. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish releases on Wednesday while Damien Chazelle's Babylon and the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody drops on Friday. Expect The Way of Water to repeat as champ, but it will be interesting to see its Christmas box office receipts before the public can make a grand declaration of success/failure.
What did you see this weekend? Christmas classics White Christmas and It's A Wonderful Life (althrough I didn't watch in a theater) were in the cards for me as well as James Cagney's Oscar-winning performance in Yankee Doodle Dandy. I also squeezed in a Nicole Kidman double feature first-time watches with Rabbit Hole and the anti-Christmas film Eyes Wide Shut. Big surprise...she's incredible in both of them.
Avatar The Way of Water, The Whale, box office
Reader Comments (11)
I am very surprised The Menu is doing better than The Fabelmans.
I saw A Study in Terror very well done Jack the Ripper movie.
I saw 2 Best Actress contenders Cate and Danielle.
I enjoyed Tar and would definitely see it again though i admired Blanchett I found her performance to be little too calculated,I didn't think it was the towering achievement most claim she is not as good in Tar as she was in Carol,Elizabeth or Blue Jasmine.
I preferred Merlant to Hoss in supporting,regarding that ending are we supposed to laugh at Lydia.
Till was a very sunny looking biopic which was a relief from underlit greys greens and browns,it hit the usual biopic beats but Deadwyler's 3 major scenes the body's arrival,the viewing,the witness stand I thought we're amongst the best acting i'd seen this year.
What's love got to do with It Angela Bassett giving one of the best biopic performances,sorry Holly my hearts with Angie in 93.
The Bodyguard a classic of sorts and Whitney's crystal clear voice is a cherishable thing.
My partner and I went to WAKANDA FOREVER. It was playing on one of the two screens (in an 8-screen multiplex) that wasn't showing AVATAR. This 7PM Sunday night screening was actually pretty full and we really liked the film, which is not our usual experience watching a Marvel movie. It's Afrofuturism and anti-cololnialist perspective made it fresher than the other, pre-fab, Marvel movies I've seen over the last few years.
I think AVATAR will be fine. The last full weekend before Christmas is always dicy, with people often too busy to go see a film. Remember when TITANIC opened just before Christmas and its merely very good box office take caused observers to declare it would never make its money back? But after Christmas, with people telling their friends, "you know what? It's really good," it just chugged along until it had broken every box office record. I think something like that could happen here, as long as they're able to hold onto the theaters. (One thing that really helped TITANIC was the lack of any real competition in January, February, and March of 1998.)
I don't want to see Avatar unless I have perfect seats in an IMAX theater, which weren't available near me this weekend and may not be for weeks, unless I really plan ahead.
So I'll catch it when the crowds thin out and I can easily get an optimal viewing experience—it's not like I'm drawn to the film for any other reason than the effects. Maybe others are in the same boat?
I'm sorry for THE FABELMANS. It's such an art piece and it creates such a magic atmosphere that I can't understand why is not having the success it deserves. Can someone in the US can explain me why is happening?
On the other front I'm very surprised by Avatar. I didn't think that anybody cared about another Avatar movie after thirteen years and after that 3D disappeared from cinemas.
I stayed home to binge-watch Wednesday (GREAT FUCKING SHOW) as well as watch this phenomenal short film by Alice Rohrwacher in Le Pupille on Disney+ which EVERYONE should see and a re-watch of Swiss Family Robinson.
I saw the Fablemans, which is great. However, I feel like the pandenmic really primed viewers to expect films like that to be viewed on streaming, even though (like all Speilberg films) it plays best on a big screen.
I think Avatar will have legs, just like its predecessor did. I am curious about the rollout to streaming and if there will be a long delay like there was with Top Gun: Maverick.
I hope Empire of Light does well in the UK. It's a beautiful film, but it's sad to see it struggling so much here.
I saw three films this weekend...
In films with oceanic metaphors and a whale... I preferred AVATAR 2 over THE WHALE.
In films with 3+ hour runtime about fighting colonizers... I preferred RRR over AVATAR 2.
Anyways, RRR for the win here.
I saw Avatar: The Way of Water - I’m still figuring out my own thoughts. I think it looks incredible, particularly the Na’vi face acting. All the whale stuff is great. I just can’t shake the feeling that it didn’t have any of the magic of the original.
I also saw White Noise - Really interesting first 2/3s and then it completely goes off the rails in the last 1/3. Driver is good but that’s it. I want to read the novel now to see what Baumbach was working with. Also, there was a point in the middle when I thought he was doing a Covid comedy.
The Menu is so much more enjoyable than The Fabelmans, which I felt miserably miscast the parents. I'm decidedly not a fan of Spielberg, so that doesn't help.
I was disappointed so many screens were showing Avatar.
Thankfully, living in Toronto afford me more diversity, and I was able to go and enjoy EO in a very under-attended screening.
I saw “The Eternal Daughter”. There are two main characters, a mother and her daughter, and Tilda Swinton plays both parts (!).
I had forgotten the extent of Tilda’s delicacy and intelligence.
The daughter, so wrenchingly vulnerable and trying so hard, the mother kind, stoic, yet elusive.
I think this is the best actress performance that I have seen this year, and believe it will be watched and loved for many years. (Although I still want Michelle Yeoh to win the Best Actress Oscar, and for Viola Davis to be nominated).
I also saw “The Banshees Of Inisherin”. A good looking movie, with some great acting. I particularly liked Kerry Condon, who I hadn’t seen before. I don’t think I’ll be re-watching this one though.
Is it just me, or is this holiday season kind of a bust generally when it comes to movies? Pardon the grinchiness of the sentiment, but I'm just finding it hard to get excited about going to the movies at a time when I usually have the opposite problem of there being too much to see.
Part of the problem is that films I was really looking forward to - Empire of Light, Whale, Babylon - have been getting panned, while the ones that are actually getting good reviews either don't interest me - looking at you, Avatar , but also Triangle of Sadness, Banshees of Inisherin, The Menu, Pinocchio - or don't open here until January. But it's not just that. There just isn't as much out there, as Ben and Nathaniel have noted.
In general, while there have been bright spots (Everything, Everywhere, Top Gun, Tár, Decision to Leave, Woman King, Aftersun, the very underrated She Said, and to a slightly lesser extent Fabelmans and Wakanda Forever), it feels like the pickings for mainstream, theatrically released movies have been slim this year, especially compared to the two preceding years. Which is weird considering those two years were peak pandemic! Maybe it's a case of delayed effect.
On the flip side, it's been a very strong year for TV, so maybe the pandemic really has accelerated the overall shift towards streaming. I hope not, though.