Sure, Magic Mike’s Last Dance won the weekend’s domestic box-office title. But the real winner? James Cameron.
We’ll begin with Last Dance, Channing Tatum’s (apparent) final bow as the character that pushed him to superstardom. It earned an estimated $8.2 million in North American theaters, and added another $10.4 million overseas. Those aren’t great numbers, mind you—especially for the box office’s No. 1 film. But the fact that the third Magic Mike movie was in theaters at all was something of a surprise. Originally, it had been designed to go straight to streaming (HBO Max, in this case). But driven by some positive audience reaction (I’m guessing in the form of cash thrown at the screens for this male-stripper-based story), Warner Bros. opted to pivot.
Still, director James Cameron had to feel like the weekend’s real winner. After sinking to third last week, his Avatar sequel, The Way of Water, resurfaced at No. 2, adding another $6.9 million to its already titanic domestic gross. (That now stands at $646.9 million in domestic dollars, making it the 10th highest-grossing movie in North America of all time.)
But speaking of titanic grosses, Cameron’s very own Titanic also logged a top three finish. The 25th anniversary rerelease collected $6.4 million (and another $15.9 million overseas). Granted, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what Titanic earned during its original record-breaking run ($665.8 million in North America). But given that Cameron didn’t need to do much beyond, “Hey, theaters, you wanna show a 25-year-old movie again?” that’s a nice bit of cash.
It’s hard to make too many box-office waves during Super Bowl weekend, which explains the low numbers across the board. More people wanted to watch the Kansas City Chiefs win their second Super Bowl than revisit Tom Brady’s 2017 trip to the Big Game. The comedy 80 for Brady earned just $6 million to finish fourth—a rare finish indeed for Tom Terrific.
Meanwhile, Knock at the Cabin—last week’s No. 1 film—tumbled all the way down to fifth with $5.5 million. Looks like that particular cabin may be closed for the season already.
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