How ‘M3GAN’ Boogied Her Way To The Box Office Via TikTok; Sequel Already In Works

Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan is back, and in a big way, as his action-packed espionage pic Pathaan has been breaking records for a Hindi title since debuting Wednesday in India and overseas. This also ends a lengthy hiatus from the big screen as a lead for SRK, and gives a boost to Bollywood which has had a rough run of late.

SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Refresh for more analysis and chart Coming out of this weekend, by mid-week, Disney/20th Century Studios/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water will easily surpass The Avengers as the No. 10 highest grossing movie ever in U.S./Canada with $623.3M. The James Cameron directed pic is expected to gross between $14M-$16M for a seventh straight No. 1 weekend streak. Avatar 2‘s seven-weekend run at No. 1 ties with the original Avatar and the Henry Fonda-Katherine Hepburn Oscar-winning movie On Golden Pond.

With a slimmed-down roster and many productions offering 2 for 1 tickets during the annual Broadway Week promotion, Broadway box office was down 24% for the week ending January 22, with the 23-show total at $25,835,362. Attendance of 204,847 was off 17% from the previous week when 29 shows were on the boards.

Over the past month, the conversation around “Avatar: The Way of Water” has shifted from, “Will it make money?” to “How much money will it make?” James Cameron‘s much-anticipated — or much-derided, depending on where you sit in the contemporary culture wars — was always expected to make money, but everyone has been shocked at its impact at the global box office. Once it became clear that the movie was going to outperform even its most ambitious expectations, the only question became whether this movie could possibly topple the original “Avatar.” And while that remains an open question, in at least one regard, Cameron’s sequel has already proven itself ahead of the pace.

EXCLUSIVE: Participant has announced that it is producing Food, Inc. 2 — a sequel to its Academy Award-nominated documentary Food, Inc., to be released later this year.

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.

Japanese studio Toei announced today that its total box office revenue reached a record Yen32.56BN (US$246.6M) for the calendar year 2022, partly thanks to the strong performances of anime blockbusters One Piece Film Red and The First Slam Dunk. 

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.

A flying ace, rampaging dinosaurs, Marvel, DC, Minions and battling blue aliens on a distant planet were among the highlights of 2022 for the Hollywood studios at the global and international box office. Still, it was yet another year of transition, with worldwide grosses reaching an estimated $26B — a 27% increase on 2021 but 35% off the pre-pandemic three-year average, according to Gower Street Analytics. The upward trajectory also occurred overseas as some markets came back strongly, while others struggled and exchange rates went wild.

Before the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” James Cameron made a lot of headlines after declaring his new film would need to be one of the Top 5 highest-grossing films of all time just to break even. Many took that quote and extrapolated that Cameron wanted ‘The Way of Water’ to hit $2 billion to become profitable during its theatrical run.

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.