James Cameron Bests His Own Box Office Records As ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Pulls Ahead Of ‘Titanic’ As Third Highest Movie Ever

viewed here, shows that the number of movie screens in the U.S. and Canada declined by 5% between 2019 and 2022 from 44,283 to 42,063 screens. The Cinema Foundation says it is unclear how many of those screens can directly attribute their closure to financial strain brought by the pandemic or how many may be brought back by theater chains acquiring and reopening closed multiplexes.

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So we’re going to do the hard work for you.

Naman Ramachandran Director Siddharth Anand is jubilant at the continuing success of blockbuster “Pathaan,” starring Shah Rukh Khan. The film’s revenues have surpassed those of the Hindi-language dubbed version of S.S. Rajamouli’s “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion” in recent days. “Pathaan,” produced by Yash Raj Films (YRF), has grossed $126.7 million, beating the Hindi dubbed version of “Baahubali 2: The Conclusion,” which had grossed $98.8 million in 2017. “Baahubali 2,” which was made in the Telugu and Tamil languages, earned $278 million worldwide, making it the second highest grossing Indian film of all time behind 2016’s Hindi-language “Dangal” that collected $311 million globally (much of that from mainland China). “Dangal” collected $65.6 million in India and is now the fourth highest Hindi-language grosser in the country after “Pathaan,” and the Hindi dubbed versions of “Baahubali 2” and “K.G.F: Chapter 2.”

Anna Tingley If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Variety may receive an affiliate commission. No one will be leaving this year’s Oscars ceremony empty-handed.

Paramount/Spyglass Media’s Scream VIis headed to a franchise-record opening of $50M+ worldwide from roughly 50 offshore territories including domestic.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Cyber Heist,” a crime thriller directed by Hong Kong’s Wong Hing-fan (“I’m Livin’ It”) and scripted by Soi Cheang (aka Cheang Pou Soi), took the top spot at the mainland Chinese box office over the weekend. It earned a very modest $6.2 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. But that was enough to win on the quietest weekend since January’s Lunar New Year holiday season. “Cyber Heist” stars Aaron Kwok as a cyber security engineer who develops a state-of-the-art firewall that is capable of fending off online attacks against the global financial system. But he does not realize that in doing so he has stepped into a minefield that is even more dangerous. The picture also stars Lam Ka-tun and Simon Yam.

Metallica’s James Hetfield is set to star in a new Western thriller movie alongside Game Of Thrones actor Peter Dinklage.The metal frontman has dabbled in acting previously, playing Officer Bob Hayward in Netflix’s Ted Bundy drama, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile, and voicing characters in Dave The Barbarian and Skylanders Academy.Hetfield is now confirmed to appear in The Thicket, a new movie adaptation of Joe R. Lansdale’s book of the same name.

EXCLUSIVE: MRC has made a deal to develop Pornsak Pichetshote’s Eisner Award-winning graphic novel bestseller The Good Asian into a series. James Wan, Michael Clear and Rob Hackett are producing for Atomic Monster. Will Rowbotham and Luke Maxwell are producing for 3 Arts. 

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Already the highest grossing local film in its home market, courtroom drama, “A Guilty Conscience” has broken into Hong Kong’s all-time top ten box office ranking with a cumulative of HK$107 million ($13.7 million). Data from Hong Kong Box Office Ltd. shows the film achieving the feat after just 41 days in cinemas and coming within HK$1 million ($150,000) of overtaking “Top Gun: Maverick.” The data firm noted that the last time a Hong Kong film got this far was with fantasy-action-comedy “Kung Fu Hustle” in 2004. Since then, it has been overtaken by a fleet of Hollywood titles. Hong Hong’s current top ten is headed by “Avengers: Endgame” and includes six Marvel movies, the two “Avatar” titles and “Titanic.”

Michaela Zee editor Woody Harrelson steps onto the court once again (“White Men Can’t Jump,” “Semi-Pro”) in the heartfelt sports comedy “Champions.” Directed by Bobby Farrelly, the remake of the 2018 Spanish film “Campeones” sees Harrelson as Marcus, a former minor-league basketball coach who leads a team of intellectually disabled players called the Friends. “It’s really hard to make an authentically funny and emotionally vulnerable film, and I thought they did such a wonderful job,” Kaitlin Olson, who plays Alex in the movie, told Variety Monday night at the New York premiere of “Champions.” “I met all the Friends and they’re such an incredible cast. They all showed up ready to play, and we just had the most amazing time.”

Dr. Dre has nothing but praise for Michael B. Jordan's monumental efforts on.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Hong Kong courtroom drama film “A Guilty Conscience” edged aside Chinese and Hollywood tentpole films to top the mainland China box office in its opening weekend. According to data from consultancy service Artisan Gateway, the film earned $8.5 million (RMB58.4 million) in its opening three days between Friday and Sunday. “The Wandering Earth 2,” which has been in cinemas for over a month, earned $7.4 million to elevate its cumulative total to $568 million. “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” which opened on top a week earlier, collected $7.0 million, giving it a 10-day cumulative of $31.4 million.

Refresh for latest…: Coming out of its second weekend, Disney/Marvel’s Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania has grossed $363.6M globally. Of that, $167.3M is from domestic and $196.3M from the international box office.

There could be a slight career shift on the horizon for Riley Keough.

The International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry has announced Taylor Swift as the recipient of its 2022 Global Recording Artist Of The Year Award – the third time she has been presented with the annual prize.“It is a great pleasure to award the IFPI Global Recording Artist Award to Taylor Swift for an unprecedented third time”, says IFPI chief exec Frances Moore. “Taylor is a truly magnificent international star, who continues to grow and evolve as an artist whilst maintaining an incredibly strong connection with her fans around the world”.The prize is handed to the artist who has the highest number of worldwide streams and sales of their music each year. As well as revealing Swift as the overall winner, the IFPI also revealed the top 20 most successful acts in 2022, which includes BTS, Bad Bunny, The Weeknd, Harry Styles, Ed Sheeran, Juice Wrld and young upstarts The Beatles.“It is exciting to see this year’s Global Recording Artist Chart reflect the increasingly diverse spectrum of music available to music fans today, with superstars from Latin America, Taiwan and South Korea as well as the US, UK and Canada represented”, says Moore.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Sometimes it takes more than a pair of global blockbusters to shake off the lingering impact of a devastating public health crisis. Quarterly sales and profits fell at Imax despite the commercial success of “Avatar: The Way of Water” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” The big screen company recorded revenues of $98 million, a 10% drop from the $108.6 million that Imax recorded in the year-ago period. The company also recorded profits of $2.6 million, compared to the $10.1 million that Imax logged in the year-ago period. That came out to earnings of 19 cents a share, which failed to match the profits of the 31 cents that Imax recorded in the same period in 2021.

Imax said today it expects return to pre-pandemic gross box office level of $1.1 billion in 2023.

Taylor Swift has been named IFPI's Global Recording Artist of the Year 2022, an annual honour celebrating the most popular recording act in the world based on streaming and sales; including vinyl, CDs and downloads.

James Cameron truly is king of the box office.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” topped the box office chart in mainland China on its opening weekend, with a $19.4 million start. But the much-discussed arrival of the Marvel movie was weak compared its franchise predecessor. And its debut was not enough to reignite the China box office market. The film arrived in a fashion that was adequately signalled for marketing purposes. And it opened on a date that was coordinated with the North American and other international debuts. In the context of the Chinese market, the film also had the advantage of landing at a time when the big, Chinese-made, Lunar New Year titles were losing their power.