TAGGED AS: Box Office, movies, news
Happy Avatar weekend to those who celebrate. Theaters certainly are, for one, but not just because of Avatar. Though still the biggest whale in the pond, James Cameron’s third trip to Pandora was not the only one. For the first time, studios did not back down in challenging the hyped juggernaut with alternative programming, and the strategy paid off. Theaters just had their best December weekend since 2021, when Spider-Man: No Way Home got everyone back to the big screens during the pandemic.
Twelve years after Titanic became the biggest film of all-time, James Cameron released his follow-up, Avatar, which had the second best December opening ever with $77.02 million. I Am Legend began with $77.21 million two years earlier, but Avatar had the last laugh when it became the biggest film of all-time with $749.7 million domestic and $2.77 billion worldwide. Thirteen years later, Cameron returned to Pandora with Avatar: The Way of Water. Despite arguments about its “social footprint” and whether or not anyone had even mentioned the original in the decade prior, the sequel had the sixth-best December opening ever ($134.1 million), grossing over $684 million domestic and $2.32 billion worldwide.
So here we are just three years later. The wait has not been nearly as long, and Avatar: Fire and Ash is in theaters, and the numbers are releasing. Granted, this is one of those context moments where an $88 million opening is often met with the word “only” in reporting. We’ll get back to the dollars in a moment, but the series has also fallen off with critics, going from the first film’s Certified Fresh 81% to Way of Water’s Certified Fresh 76% down to 67%. That’s still Fresh, but Piranha II: The Spawning notwithstanding, it is Cameron’s lowest score as a director. (The Way of Water and The Abyss are next on the list at 76%).
What are we to make of a 34.4% drop in opening weekend attendance for a five billion-plus franchise? Perhaps that enough studios weren’t scared enough to actually give audiences a chance to spread the wealth this weekend. The Way of Water opened against nothing more than a 75th Anniversary re-issue of It’s a Wonderful Life on fewer than 1,000 screens. The original opened against Did You Hear About the Morgans? Talk about no cultural footprint.
Angel Studios joined some select company this weekend. Very select, actually. ‘Tis certainly the season for animated and family films, but the bulk of them actually debut in November to get a head start. The top animated opening of all time in the month of December is Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse ($35.3 million), just marginally better than Sing ($35.2 million). Angel’s animated David, about the Goliath legend, just finished with the fourth-best animated December opening ever with $22 million, just behind Sing 2 ($22.3 million), and the studio’s best opening to date. Not too shabby for the studio, which had Easter success with a $19.3 million start for their Charles Dickens Jesus film The King of Kings, which finished with just over $60 million. In another number that may surprise you, there have only been six animated films this month to open and gross over $100 million. They include the aforementioned leaders along with Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Sing 2, Migration and The Prince of Egypt. David is certainly hoping to follow the path of Moses there to become the second, as well as Angel’s second nine-digit release after Sound of Freedom.
For all the grief that Sydney Sweeney got for the November opening of Christy, the true-life boxing drama from a newly branded distributor that had one of the worst wide openings ever, apparently December is her month. Just two years ago we saw Anyone But You open just before Christmas to only $6 million and then go on to have one of the best December multiples ever to gross $88.3 million. Now, paired with Amanda Seyfried and director Paul Feig, the adaptation of Freida McFadden’s very popular novel The Housemaid opened to $19 million. That is the eighth-best R-rated opening ever this month, and the only two with that rating to open over $17 million and not reach $100 million were last year’s Nosferatu ($95.6 million) and The Godfather Part III. Just when you thought Sweeney was out, she pulls you back in.
Some people may have forgotten that there was a third Spongebob Squarepants movie that got caught up in the terrible circumstances of the pandemic. Sponge on the Run was supposed to get a 2019 release, but got delayed a year and then shifted around multiple times in the chaos of that period until it ultimately received a 300-theater launch in August 2020, where it made just $4.8 million. Compare that to 2015’s first sequel, Sponge Out of Water, which nearly doubled the domestic take of the original 2004 film ($162.9 million vs. $85.4 million) and did double up on its global haul ($325.1 million vs. $141 million). At the time it was the fifth-highest grossing film to be released in February. (Fifty Shades of Grey came out a week later and was the fourth at the time. It is now 10th and Spongebob is 12th.)
Now, five years removed from the third film comes the fourth, The Spongebob Movie: Search for Squarepants, and it began with $16 million. Though beaten by David, it is the sixth-highest animated opening ever in December. These films just knocked Spies in Disguise and The Boy and the Heron out of the top 10. While it may seem like a low number, do not entirely count out its chances over the holiday to reach $100 million. The last Night at the Museum opened to only $17.1 million on this exact date in 2014 and it went on to make over $113 million. Yogi Bear turned $16.4 million into $100.2 million in 2010. In fact, only five PG-rated films in December opened to $15 million or higher and failed to make it to $100 million, and two of them were Star Trek films (The Undiscovered Country and Insurrection). The others were Eragon, Nora Ephron’s Michael in 1996, and the 2014 version of Annie, all of which grossed over $70 million.
Zootopia 2 got some animated competition this weekend, but it continues to do well on the domestic side with the all-important holiday break in full gear. Another $15.1 million in its fourth weekend brings its 26-day total to $283.4 million. That’s the seventh-best 26-day total for a November release. Zootopia’s weekend is higher than the Thanksgiving champion, Moana 2 ($13.2 million), though it is about $76 million behind that other Disney sequel at this point. But the pacing suggests it is headed north of $380 million, surpassing the original, with possibly even an outside chance at $400 million domestic. Meanwhile, its global total is at $1.273 billion for 25th of all time. Disney owns more than half of the films in the top 30.
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 crossed the $100 million line on the domestic side. Another $7.2 million in its third weekend helped achieve that, and the next two weeks will be interesting to see just how well the holiday break goes. Will it boost its grosses or continue to fall at the rate it has dropped: 69.7% in its second weekend and another 63% in its third? Word of mouth is not exactly its friend. It remains on par with Prometheus and 1998’s Godzilla, which finished with $126.4 million and $136.3 million, respectively. Somewhere in that region is where Freddy’s Deux appears to be headed. Even better for Universal and Blumhouse, the film has crossed $200 million worldwide.
Last year’s Wicked: Part One grossed $14.1 million in its fifth weekend. Wicked: For Good is down to just $4.3 million. Part One was up to $384.5 million by this point in its run. For Good finished the weekend with $320.5 million. A final tally of $330-340 million still feels like a reasonable assessment for its domestic finish, though with the holiday break coming up, it could possibly stretch itself just over that threshold. The final chapter (of the play at least) is just shy of half a billion worldwide with $484.2 million. Universal can take this all to the bank, even if its chances of major Oscar glory are just about off the table.
After a 76% increase last weekend and a move into the top five, the Hindi epic Dhurandhar fell back to eighth with just a 31% drop to $2.4 million and $12.6 million total. Hamnet lost 132 theaters and is now is only 617 theaters, but it hung on with $850,000 to bring its total to $8.7 million. But that is not the biggest Oscar contender story in the top 10 this week.
A24 released Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme into just six theaters this weekend before it goes wider on Christmas Day. Evidently, those who had access just couldn’t wait, because it grossed $874,998. Why is this significant? Because in a moment that would make Marty proud (and tell you how great he is) not only is this the best per-theater average since La La Land in 2016, but Safdie’s film just had the best six-theater launch of all time. He just beat Asteroid City ($845,143), American Hustle ($740,455) Blue Jasmine ($612,064), Midnight in Paris ($599,003), The Phoenician Scheme ($560,499) and Anora ($550,503). Safdie bested two established limited release champs in Wes Anderson and Woody Allen, plus last year’s Best Picture winner by Sean Baker, not to mention A24’s best six-theater launch from earlier this year, Friendship ($444,759). The $145,833 per-theater average is A24’s highest ever over Eighth Grade ($144,618), the Safdies’ Uncut Gems ($107,448), and Moonlight ($100,519). We’ll see how this translates as it continues on its awards run, but this is an excellent start. Meanwhile, Bradley Cooper’s third directorial effort, Is This Thing On? with Will Arnett and Laura Dern, was also in six theaters. It opened to $145,000 in six theaters, a bit less than After the Hunt did back in October with $158,679.
Christmas Day will bring Paul Rudd and Jack Black remaking their own version of 1997’s Anaconda. Look out for a potential sleeper hit in Song Sung Blue, with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson in the true story of a Neil Diamond tribute band. In limited release, Amanda Seyfried is set to be nominated in the tale of 18th-century Shakers, The Testament of Ann Lee. Park Chan-wook delivers a nasty tale of unemployment in No Other Choice, and Ralph Fiennes tries to get a music performance together during WWI in The Choral.
Erik Childress can be heard each week evaluating box office on Business First AM with Angela Miles and his Movie Madness Podcast. [box office figures via Box Office Mojo]
Thumbnail image by 20th Century Studios
