Weekend projections: Knock at the Cabin knocks Avatar out of top spot

February 5, 2023

Knock at the Cabin

After a mighty seven weekends at the top of the chart, Avatar: The Way of Water has lost its crown as box office champ to Knock at the Cabin. With a projected $14.2 million, M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller isn’t doing stellar numbers by the director’s high standards, but it is doing enough to hold off 80 for Brady, which is headed for $12.5 million in second place. Avatar will be third with around $10.8 million.

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



Our model’s original prediction for Knock at the Cabin’s opening weekend was $22.8 million, based on Shyamalan’s history along with our adjustments for market strength, audience interest, and opening theater count. The Thursday preview numbers pointed towards a $17-million weekend. So $14.2 million is a fairly disappointing number. In fact, it’s the worst opening in M. Night Shyamalan’s career as a director. The post-pandemic market has something to do with that, of course, but even adjusting for our model’s current market strength estimate, it translates into about $20 million in pre-pandemic days. His only film not to hit that mark before 2021’s pandemic-affected Old was Lady in the Water, with $18 million back in 2006 (roughly equivalent to $25 million adjusted for ticket-price inflation).

80 for Brady is looking healthier in comparison, coming in ahead of our Friday projection by about $700,000. As I mentioned in my column, this out-performance wasn’t entirely a surprise, since films aimed at older audiences tend not to post great previews, and it is only modestly ahead of our prediction in percentage terms. But opening with over $10 million is good news, given that this is the type of film that has been particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Hopefully it’ll lead to a few more films like it getting added to the wide release schedule—there’s certainly ample space for them.

Avatar’s performance continues a trend of slightly underperforming our model each weekend. That’s partly because so few films are earning this kind of money after more than 50 days in release. The prime comparison is Top Gun: Maverick, which earned $12.3 million in its eighth weekend and was declining at about 20% a week at that point in its run. Avatar is declining at about 30% a week, which is still just fine, but means it won’t top Maverick’s final total in the end. For a comparison between the two films, click here.

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

- Help support The Numbers with a small monthly or one-time donation.

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: M. Night Shyamalan