Weekend Box Office: Repeats and "Missing"

By Ben Miller

Hollywood is becoming exceedingly lazy in getting out new films these days.  Maybe it's the hangover from the pandemic, or maybe economics are finally starting to catch up with studios.  Regardless, Avatar: The Way of Water stayed comfortably at the top box office spot for the sixth week.  James Cameron's film is now the 13th-highest grossing domestic hit and the sixth film (and third Cameron film) to gross $2 billion worldwide.  The only new release of note was Missing, the psuedo-sequel to 2019's Searching.  Budgeted at a reasonable $7 million, it made back its money in one week.  Good reviews (82% on Rotten Tomatoes) could help its legs in the coming weeks...

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Jan 20th-22nd 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
THE WAY OF WATER	THE SON
1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $20 (cum. $598.2) 3790 screens	1 🔺★   WOMEN TALKING $380k (cum. $1.1) 153 screens
2 ★ PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH  $11.5 (cum. $126.4) 3,611 screens	2 🔺 THE SON $239k *NEW* 554 screens

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Weekend Box Office: Status Quo

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

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Weekend Box Office: M3GAN is Another Slasher Hit

By Ben Miller

As Smile and The Black Phone proved in 2022, no genre gets more bang for their buck than horror.  Avatar: The Way of Water was the top draw at theaters this weekend, but it's the murderous robot M3GAN that made the biggest splash.  Budgeted at a mere $12 million, Gerard Jonstone's film grossed a shocking $30 million to go along with jubiliant critical praise (93% on Rotten Tomatoes!).  After all, she is our new horror princess.  The Way of Water managed just a 33% drop in its fourth week with $45 million as it barrells it's way towards $2 billion worldwide.  Despite only being in theaters for four weeks, it's the seventh highest grossing movie of all-time.  James Cameron cannot miss (at least financially).

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Jan 6th-8th 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
M3GAN	A MAN CALLED OTTO
1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $45.8 (cum. $517.6) 4340 screens	1 🔺   A MAN CALLED OTTO $4.2 (cum. $4.2) 637 screens
2 🔺 ★ M3GAN $30.4 *NEW* 3509 screens	2 🔺 ★ CORSAGE $251k (cum. $342k) 317 screens

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Weekend Box Office: New Year, New Highs

By Ben Miller

In a refreshing change of pace, the long holiday weekend box office was full of good news!  Pretty much every film was up following that storm-stifling Christmas weekend.  Nothing new debuted in wide release, so Avatar: The Way of Water was able to actually increase from the week before.  James Cameron's movies typically have remarkable legs.  Its $67.4 million haul was good enough to place it as the third best third weekend of all-time, behind the film's predecessor and The Force Awakens.  Very good company to be in, box office-wise.  But it wasn't just Avatar.  Of the top 16 films at the box office, 13 increased from the week before!

Weekend Box Office (actuals) Dec 30th-January 2nd 🔺 = new or expanding /  ★ = Recommended
WIDE (OVER 800 SCREENS)	LIMITED / PLATFORM
AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER	THE WHALE
1 ★ AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER $67.4 (cum. $425.5) 4202 screens	1  🔺 THE WHALE $1.3 (cum. $5.8) 623 screens

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30 Biggest Subtitled Hits (and where to watch them)

Our daily "Year in Review" lists have begun!

Even before the pandemic, box office reporting was becoming more secretive. Netflix was the chief disruptor since their Oscar hopefuls got theatrical releases but numbers were never reported. Other streaming distributors followed and once you added in the increasing regularity of movies simultaneously doing theatrical (generally reported) and VOD (generally not reported) it was chaos. The COVID-19 pandemic was the ultimate disruptor of course, changing global viewing habits, by virtue of Father Time. International cinema in the US has been increasingly demoted to streaming-only since adult audiences have been the toughest to lure back to the theaters. That said there are subtitled pictures that played theatrically this year and we wanted to honor them by noting the success stories...

Curiously the only foreign country that habitually reports big box office numbers in the US is India but those numbers are often reported as "estimates" in the way, say, European titles didn't tend to be. Furthermore Indian pictures, RRR being an obvious exception, don't tend to get much US media coverage even though they sell tickets, at least in specific areas of the country which makes it all kind of confusing in terms of "what is a success?".  But here are the numbers that were reported, some surely more accurately than others. The numbers are primarily drawn from two sites (box office mojo and the numbers). Titles with up arrows are still in theaters 

TOP 33 SUBTITLED HITS OF 2022 AT THE US BOX OFFICE
Rank for the calendar year / Movie Title / $ Estimate Domestic Gross / $ Global Gross
Figures updated as of 01/15/23

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