Broadway Box Office Surges Along With Holiday Ticket Prices; ‘Funny Girl’, ‘Beetlejuice’, ‘Six’ Among Shows Smashing House Records; ‘Lion King’ Takes $4.3M

Broadway lost six productions on January 15 – including the top-grossing The Music Man – to the usual January roster-thinning, and each show went out on a happy note with strong attendance.

It is a blockbuster morning as far as the Producers Guild of America is concerned as it revealed film and TV nominations Thursday for its 34th annual PGA Awards.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water will reign supreme in its fifth weekend over the four-day MLK holiday frame with an estimated take around $35M.

Broadway box office took the expected drop last week, declining nearly 30% (to $37,394,931) from the previous week’s holiday-pumped $52M figure. Attendance for the 32 shows was down about 12% (to 275,834), but remained at a solid 92% of total capacity.

Courtney Love would be happy about this news!

Hong Kong’s box office managed to stage a partial recovery in the second half of 2022, despite cinemas being closed for nearly four months earlier in the year, due to US titles including Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way Of Water and a strong line-up of local movies.

A brilliant negotiator, Lew Wasserman was the ex-agent who presided over the vast MCA Universal media empire from his black tower. He favored black suits and austere offices and seemed to convey stress as he strolled about his kingdom.

When it was originally announced, Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” seemed like a no-brainer, Oscar favorite. An epic tale of Old Hollywood, written and directed by the filmmaker behind “Whiplash,” “La La Land,” and “First Man.” That’s such an easy sell.

Any cynicism about a broken down Christmas box office, impacted by weather, was wiped away Tuesday as 20th Century Studios/Disney/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water racked up $23.8M sending its domestic cume to $317.1M. In addition, the sequel flew past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. Director James Cameron has told the media that the breakeven point for Avatar: The Way of Water stands at $2 billion global mark.

The aftermath of Covid’s 2020-21 closure of cinemas will continue to be felt in 2023 as the domestic box office claws its way back to what many sources believe is an $8 billion-$9 billion result.

Never bet against James Cameron, they said. And while “Avatar: The Way Of Water” got off to somewhat of a slow box office start—or at least it fell under some of the early projections which made pundits quickly skeptical of its chances—the Cameron maxim seems to be coming true.

When it was originally announced, Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” seemed like a no-brainer, Oscar favorite. An epic tale of Old Hollywood, written and directed by the filmmaker behind “Whiplash,” “La La Land,” and “First Man.” That’s such an easy sell.

It’s The Economy, Stupid

Damien Chazelle’s$80M 1920s-set Hollywood epic Babylon went up in a blaze of fire at the domestic box office this past weekend with an awful $5.3M 4-day start.

New Yorkers braved the cold this weekend for Corsage at two theaters ( IFC Center, Film at Lincoln Center) as Marie Kreutzer’s biopic of Empress Elisabeth of Austria starring Vicky Krieps grossed an estimated $32,000 over the three-day weekend for a robust $16k per screen average.

While theaters are still recovering from the pandemic directly impacting attendance and box office outcomes, there are still really great movies struggling to find audiences outside of streaming and VOD options when they are released in theaters. Some smaller to mid-range pictures, mainly horror, have done better than expected in the shadow of the $100-200 million-dollar budgeted blockbusters that seemingly come out round-year now.

We’re hearing that bad weather in the Midwest significantly impacted Thursday grosses with Winter Storm Elliott intensifying into a bomb cyclone. As of this morning, more than 1 million customers are without power across the country, around 4K flights canceled and wind chill in the -20 to -30 degree range as the country gets hammered by severe winter conditions.