By Ben Miller
With an extra day at the weekend box office, Avatar: The Way of Water and M3GAN both repeated at the top two spots, while continuing to show impressive legs. The Way of Water droped less than 30% in its fifth week, adding another $30+ million to its domestic total. It's already up to $1.9 billion worldwide, and it should become the sixth film in history to surpass $2 billion next week. It's also currently 13th all-time in domestic gross and will probably end up in the top ten. As for M3GAN, the film only dropped 40% in its second week, which is great for a horror film. Budgeted at only $12 million, horror continues to be the best bang for your buck in films these days.
| Weekend Box Office (actuals) Jan 13th-15th 🔺 = new or expanding / ★ = Recommended |
|
| WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS) | LIMITED / PLATFORM |
 M3GAN |
 SKINAMARINK |
| 1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $32.8 (cum. $564.6) 4,045 screens |
1 🔺 WALTAIR VEERAYYA $1.1 *NEW* 350 screens |
| 2 ★ M3GAN $18.3 (cum. $56.8) 3,605 screens |
2 🔺 SKINAMARINK $819k *NEW* 692 screens |
| 3 ★ PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH $14.4 (cum. $107.4) 3,687 screens |
3 🔺 ★ BROKER $316k (cum. $501k) 271 screens |
|
4 🔺 A MAN CALLED OTTO $12.8 (cum. $19.0) 3,802 screens |
4 🔺★ WOMEN TALKING $201k (cum. $614k) 61 screens |
|
5 🔺 PLANE $10.3 *NEW* 3,023 screens |
5 ★ CORSAGE $95k (cum. $563k) 202 screens |
|
6 🔺 HOUSE PARTY $4.0 *NEW* 1,400 screens |
6 🔺★ LIVING $86k (cum. $218k) 32 screens |
 THE WHALE |
 LIVING |
|
7 BLACK PANTHER WAKANDA FOREVER $2.4 (cum. $449.4) 1,910 screens |
7 ★ THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN $82k (cum. $9.3) 55 screens |
|
8 🔺 THE WHALE $1.5 (cum. $10.7) 1,500 screens |
8 ★ TÁR $73k (cum. $5.8) 60 screens |
|
9 WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY $1.2 (cum. $21.9) 3,184 screnes |
9 🔺 ★ SAINT OMER $69k *NEW* 245 screens |
|
10 ★ THE FABELMANS $544k (cum. $14.2) 808 screens |
10 ★ EO $53k (cum. $653k) 70 screens |
|
11 🔺 THE DEVIL CONSPIRACY $440k *NEW* 925 screens |
11 ★ HOLY SPIDER $36k (cum. $265k) 95 screens |
Elsewhere, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has steadily made its way over $100 million and actually increased the box office from last week. It's a great film, so we should all be happy for it. Tom Hanks' curmudgeon remake A Man Called Otto expanded to wide release and managed a healthy $12.8 million. Audiences are loving it, so it shouldn't be a surprise if it also has legs. The new releases include Gerard Butler's latest action film Plane and the House Party remake. Plane did MUCH better than House Party, but I wouldn't expect either to make much of a box office dent next week.
On the limited/platform side, the pickings are slim though the slowly expanding Broker and Corsage have done solid business and are now among the 25 most successful subtitled releases of 2022. It's not all good news. Microbudgeted horror film Skinamarink managed less than $1 million in almost 700 theaters, while Alice Diop's exceptional French Oscar-finalist Saint Omer made less than $300 per screen in its debut
Next Weekend - The only wide release is Missing, the psuedo-sequel to 2019's Searching. It might be able to take some of the share away from the top two, but I would be shocked if it's anything higher than third. In limited release is The Son, Florian Zeller's follow-up to his Oscar-winning The Father, as well as Jessie Eisenberg's directoral debut When You Finish Saving the World.
What did you watch this weekend? I was able to see A Man Called Otto and tried my best to hate it (but I could not). I also rewatched Boogie Nights and checked off Oscar blindspots Sweet Bird of Youth and Divorce Italian Style.