Weekend Box Office: A Cold Christmas

By Ben Miller

Traditionally seen as one of the big box office weekends of the year, the Christmas box office was hampered by the devestating cold weather.  Avatar: The Way of Water cruised to another easy box office championship but the entire weekend only made slightly north of $80 million.

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 23rd-25th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER	THE WHALE
1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $63.3 (cum. $261) 4202 screens	1  🔺 THE WHALE $1.0 (cum. $2.5) 603 screens

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Weekend Box Office: A $134 Million Disappointment?

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
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

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Oscar Volleys: The Worldbuilding of Production Design

Team Experience will be discussing each Oscar category as we head into the precursors. Here's Eurocheese and Nick Taylor... 

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

EUROCHEESE: Hi Nick! We have an exciting group of larger-than-life worlds to conquer for Production Design, but maybe it would be best to start with the elephant in the room: Despite some mixed reviews on Babylon, I have to imagine if nothing else it will make its coked-up presence known here, as homage to Hollywood's glory days. Then we have two blockbuster sequels to previous Best Production Design winners, with Black Panther Wakanda Forever and Avatar The Way of Water both asking similar questions: will the branch be excited enough for an encore nomination? I'm actually leaning towards no, now that we've seen the CGI-heavy worlds. Both might make more sense in other craft categories.  I'm curious to hear your thoughts though...

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Links/News

• NYT Fun Avatar Way of the Water discussion with James Cameron, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldaña, and Sam Worthington
• Mashable a list of family-safe horror movies if you like spooky but hate gore (this describes me!)
• IndieWire first gushing reactions to Black Panther Wakanda Forever
• Parade Comprehensive Jessica Chastain interview. She wants to remake Death Becomes Her which... sorry, why not just a legacy sequel with new character? Streep & Hawn are still with us

More after the jump including Paul Mescal, Lupita Nyong'o, James Gunn, Jennifer Lawrence and Everything Everywhere All At Once Oscar campaigning...

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Movie News x 5: Amsterdam, Avatar 2, Barbie, Bardo, and Fast X

by Nathaniel R

1. Hey look, it's the first image from David O. Russell's next film Amsterdam, which the internet has been calling either Canterbury Glass or Untitled David O. Russell Film for its entire production history. But now we know its true name so we've had to adjust all the Oscar charts accordingly, not that we've predicted it for much at this juncture. Though obviously predictions can and do change throughout the year...

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