Avatar: The Way of Water took the box-office crown for the seventh-straight weekend, banking an estimated $15.7 million in North American grosses to push its overall domestic earnings to $620.6 million. That makes it the 11th highest-grossing film of all time stateside.
If you turn the page and factor in overseas earnings, The Way of Water has earned about $2.1 billion, making it the globe’s fourth highest-grossing film—trailing the original Avatar ($2.9 billion) Avengers: Endgame ($2.8 billion) and Titanic ($2.2 billion), which might add a few more bucks to its coffers with a theatrical rerelease Feb. 10.
All that means that James Cameron—who directed both the Avatar movies and Titanic—likely has enough money to build his own planet by now.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish continues its own impressive climb up the money tree. The animated family movie banked another $10.6 million, pushing its domestic tally to $140.8 million. You could say the film is really catshing in. (Get it? Cat? Cash? Oh, never mind.)
A Man Called Otto climbed up to third place this weekend with $6.8 million. That pushed it ahead of fourth-place M3GAN, which still managed to dance to $6.4 million.
The box office’s biggest surprise, though, might’ve been the film that landed in fifth place. Pathaan, an Indian-language epic playing on just 695 screens, collected nearly $6 million. It’s another data point that tells us that American audience are looking for new, creative stories—and increasingly turning their eyes overseas to find them.
4 Responses
– I was surprised that Avatar: The Way of Water was nominated for Best Picture. I respect it as a technical achievement, but it just felt hollow on a human level. Like opening a beautiful diamond-encrusted gold box and finding an undercooked hot dog inside.
When it comes to blockbuster sequels, I’ll take Top Gun: Maverick any day. It’s too bad Tom Cruise wasn’t nominated for Best Actor. There’s tough competition this year, but his performance was a master class in charisma and old-school star power.
-Yep, I’m hoping for either Maverick or Everything Everywhere All At Once to take the top prize and for the latter to take Visual Effects, because for a movie that cost ~1/8 of what a Marvel movie costs, the visuals just never ceased to amaze. Avatar 2, meanwhile, looked good in IMAX but largely felt like a waste of a 3D surcharge since the effect didn’t feel used very often or very well, especially since a lot of important scenes took place at night, which made the movie borderline indecipherable with 3D glasses on (cf. Deathly Hallows Part 2).
Yeah, I saw it in 3D too and wasn’t blown away because it seemed to darken the picture and mute the colors, as usual. The first Avatar launched a 3D fad, so we’ll see if it makes another comeback. I think 3D is annoying when it’s used in a gimmicky way and too dark when it’s not, so why bother with it? (I know, money.)
I’m rooting for Tar for Best Picture, although I realize its appeal isn’t as broad as some of the other nominees. But the Oscars have a recent history of rewarding movies relatively few people have seen, so you never know.
-I’d recalled someone mentioning Tár but couldn’t remember who. Blanchett is a fantastic actress, though, and I’d expect her to be able to carry a concept like this. I might have to check this out, thanks.