For the seventh consecutive weekend, AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER claimed the top spot at the box office with a three-day gross of $15.7M, a drop of 22% from last weekend. While this sets a new post-pandemic record for consecutive weekends at number one, the streak will probably end next weekend with the opening of the M. Night Shyamalan suspense thriller KNOCK AT THE CABIN. Since it opened on 12/16, AVATAR 2 has amassed $621M in the U.S. & Canada and $2.1B worldwide, making it the fourth highest-grossing theatrical release of all time.
We stand by our previous projections that AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER will wind up earning $650M in the U.S. & Canada, which would be 87% of the $750M box office that AVATAR earned in its initial run from 2009. The gap in attendance between the two films is even higher, considering a substantial increase in ticket prices over the past 13 years and the relatively higher portion of this year’s ticket sales coming from Premium Large Format Screens (PLFS), which are sold at a premium price. After factoring this in, we project that AVATAR 2 will wind up selling approximately 70% of the number of tickets that AVATAR sold in the Domestic market.
This shortfall in ticket sales has the greatest impact on exhibitors, whose bottom line depends on highly profitable concession sales. After grossing more than $2B worldwide, Disney and Twentieth Century Studios will certainly move forward to make more sequels in the AVATAR franchise, which is welcome news for exhibitors. One hopes that the much quicker appearance of the next sequel – AVATAR 3 is scheduled to hit theatres in December 2024 – will keep interest levels high resulting in more tickets sold.
PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH continued its hold on second place with a gross of $10.6, which was a very modest drop of 10% from last weekend’s box office. The animated sequel has earned $141.8M in North American theatres over the 38 days since it opened on 12/21, and it appears to be on track to gross $160M for its complete run. Results for the DreamWorks-produced animated feature compare favorably to the $149M earned by the original PUSS IN BOOTS from 2011. With a production budget of $90M and a worldwide gross of over $300M thus far, we can expect to see more of PUSS in the not-too-distant future.
A MAN CALLED OTTO starring Tom Hanks moved up into third place with a weekend gross of $6.8M, a drop of 23% from last weekend. Sony has followed a platform release strategy for OTTO, with the number of locations increasing gradually over its first three weeks in theatres. The film has grossed $46M to date and is on its way to an overall North American total of $60M. Carrying a production budget of $60M and having sold approximately $70M worldwide, OTTO will need to hold well in the weeks ahead in order to achieve profitability.
Universal’s M3GAN finished in fourth place, with a gross of $6.4M and a drop of 34%. The horror hit is the number one Domestic grossing movie to open in 2023, with $82.2M to date.
PATHAAN from Yash Raj Films was a surprise fifth-place finisher, earning $5.9M at only 695 locations, giving it by far the highest per-location average of $8,557. The film is a high-octane Bollywood thriller starring Shah Rukh Khan and John Abrams. It has received strong support from critics, with a Tomatometer score of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Moviegoers are not far behind, with a positive 82% audience score. In the past, comparable films have opened in North America with strong results, but have not been able to sustain them beyond the first several weeks. We’ll watch to see if PATHAAN has the legs to buck that trend.
2023 continues its winning ways compared to 2022, having topped last year’s results for all four weeks thus far. The total box office for all movies this weekend was approximately $75M, compared to only $35.8M for the same weekend in 2022 when exhibitors struggled with no new wide releases for the second weekend in a row.
Where Are We as of 1/26
On the bright side, 2023 has done very well in comparison to 2022, having earned 172% after the first four weeks compared with the amount earned last year at this time. On the other hand, the tally to date for 2023 is a mere 71% compared with the first four weeks of 2019.
