Avatar: The Way of Water is the weekend’s No. 1 movie again. But the movie—or at least the title—comes with a bit of a paradox. Because right now, the box office is anything but fluid.
The Way of Water claimed the weekend’s domestic box-office title for the fifth-straight weekend, collecting another $32.4 million to add to its overflowing treasure chests. James Cameron’s latest epic has now banked $564.2 million in North America, and a staggering $1.9 billion worldwide. Admittedly, that global mark is still about a billion behind the original Avatar (the No. 1 grossing film of all time), but still not too shabby.
The rest of the box office looks almost like a carbon copy of last week’s list. M3GAN finished second to The Way of Water for the second straight week, collecting about $18.3 million (according to the studio’s estimates). Puss in Boots: The Last Wish slinked into third place with $14.4 million, bringing its overall domestic cross to a very respectable $107.4 million. A Man Called Otto was fourth, taking in another $12.8 million.
The only new movie to crack the Top Five was the R-rated action flick Plane, which landed not so gently into fifth place with a $10.3 million take.
Could Avatar: The Way of Water float to the top for a sixth-straight weekend? It’s possible. Only a movie called Missing stands in its way. And if you haven’t heard of it … well, that speaks for its chances, doesn’t it?
3 Responses
-It’s great to see audiences, especially in the middle of the country, turning out for A Man Called Otto. I haven’t seen it, but it’s the kind of original (well, almost original) adult-oriented drama that hasn’t been faring well lately.
-I went to see the new movie from Darren Aronofsky, “The Whale,” this afternoon. It was emotionally quite difficult at times, but powerful and utterly gripping. On Rotten Tomatoes it’s clocking in at 91% positive among audiences, yet only 66% positive according to critics. Reading the negative reviews, critics seems to dwell most on Brendan Fraser’s prosthetics, as if Aronofsky just wanted to turn him into a freakshow so we could marvel at his grotesquerie. Some critics say the film’s premise is “inherently dehumanizing.” I didn’t get that at all. Fraser’s performance was amazing and all-too-human. But Aronofsky has always been polarizing, so there’s that. Anyway …. 9 out of 10 stars for me.
-I was wondering how that’d go. I can understand why there’d be controversy over using a fat suit, but other than that, I’ve generally heard good things about the movie and especially about the main performance.
I did enjoy Aronofsky’s “Noah” movie as a movie, but one specific scene involving brutal violence against Noah’s middle son’s girlfriend while she loudly begs for her life—which didn’t even have anything to do with the flood! despite getting way more emotional emphasis and dare I say more plot relevance because of what happens to the boy in the ending—just wrecked me in ways I didn’t think were beneficial or necessary for the film or its story.