Weekend projections: Avatar, Puss in Boots continue cruising as Oscar hopefuls and new releases do battle

January 29, 2023

Avatar: The Way of Water

The top four movies this weekend are continuing their serene runs at the box office, with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish down just 10% in its 6th weekend, Avatar: The Way of Water declining 22% and recording its seventh consecutive weekend win, A Man Called Otto off 23% in its 5th weekend, and M3GAN posting a very respectable $6.37 million in its 4th weekend. Below them, eleven more films, coming from virtually every corner of the film world, will top $1 million this weekend.

Here’s how the domestic numbers looked as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



Avatar continues to set records around the world. It now stands at $620.6 million domestically, and will pick up another $42.4 million internationally this weekend to take it to $1.496 billion outside North America. It is now the 4th-highest global earner of all time and is just $52 million behind Titanic’s $2.208 billion global total. It should settle into third place by the end of its run with something around $2.5 billion. Of particular note is the fact that it’s now the highest-grossing film of all time in France—the biggest market where it has broken the all-time record.

The Way of Water’s seven-week run at number one marks the first time a film has achieved that milestone since the original Avatar back in 2009/10. The last film to spend its first eight weekends at the top was Titanic, which actually spent 15 consecutive weekends at number one (all the way through the end of March!). James Cameron’s films basically dominate all of these record charts. Disney noted this morning that they hold the rights (with the exception of domestic rights to Titanic) for all five of the top-grossing movies of all time. I would note that they also own the sixth movie on that list, Avengers: Infinity War (not to mention the ninth and tenth… I could go on).

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish continues to rack up steady earnings every weekend. It’s now up to $334 million worldwide, with $140.9 million domestically and $193.3 million internationally. Notably, it still hasn’t been released in the United Kingdom (where it debuts on February 3) and Japan (March 17). So it still has a way to go.

The big sleeper hit of the weekend is Pathaan from Yash Raj Films, which will earn just shy of $6 million this weekend and will hit $8.5 million in total after five days in release. This is one that slipped under our radar, as often happens with Bollywood films, which are highly targeted at their core audience, to the extent that it’s hard to get much information on their releases. That’s something we’re working to rectify.

Also posting great numbers this weekend is The Wandering Earth 2 from Well Go USA. The Chinese sci-fi action adventure has grossed $321 million in its native territory, and is now rolling out worldwide. It picked up $1.645 million from special screenings on Thursday, which is included in it weekend total. Without that boost, it will earn $1.355 million from Friday to Sunday, putting it more in the middle of a dense pack of new releases and Oscar expansions.

The two highest-profile new releases are both performing about in line with expectations. Infinity Pool will earn $2.725 million for Neon. The distributor is probably pretty happy with that. Likewise Fathom Events, who are projecting $2.4 million for Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist for the 3-day weekend, and $2.97 million since its release on Thursday. It is currently the number three film on Sunday, according to Fathom, buoyed by its faith-based audience.

Billie Eilish Live at the O2 will come in eleventh this weekend with $1.29 million, followed by horror movie Fear with $1.28 million. Hidden Empire Releasing says they’re excited at the result, and it’s a good one for the first release from a new distributor, particularly considering the level of competition this weekend.

In fact, 15 films will top $1 million at the box office this weekend. That’s not a huge number by historical standards: no less than 25 films topped $1 million the weekend of September 1, 2017, for example, which is a record shared with a couple of weekends in January, 2007. It does, however, equal the post-pandemic record set on the weekend of August 12 last year.

The reason so many films hit the mark is down to the rerelease or expansion of several Oscar nominees. The most successful among them are Best Picture favorite Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Whale, and Women Talking, all of which are projected to earn basically the same amount as one another this weekend. Everything Everywhere… technically leads the pack with a $1.015-million projection, with The Whale and Women Talking currently looking at $1.013 million, but they could clearly end up in any order once all the numbers are in.

So fierce is the competition, in fact, that The Fabelmans will increase its box office takings by 78% from last weekend while dropping from 12th to something around 17th place. Its growth in absolute box office this weekend is entirely down to a big increase in theater count, which is back to 1,962 venues—the seventh-widest release of the weekend. That fact that it’s getting this much support from theaters and its distributor Universal, but doesn’t seem to be striking a chord with audiences, might be a warning sign that it’ll struggle to turn Oscar nominations into wins.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time biggest weekends
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide

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Bruce Nash,

Filed under: James Cameron