Weekend Box Office: Avatar The Way of Water claims first with less than expected $134 Million

The weekend is over, the cash has been counted, the credit card receipts have been tabulated and as expected James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water came out on top with a reported $134 million opening weekend. That number is WAY below even the most modest of expectations. On Thursday some predicted around $200 million (even I overestimated in my prediction of $180 million), on Saturday it looked like $150 million but I’m not sure how many saw it coming in this low.

The thing with James Cameron blockbusters is: they don’t tend to be front loaded. We have come to expect films to have massive opening weekends followed by severe drops. Think about the over 60% declines Marvel movies have suffered lately. The Way of Water saw only a 15% decline from Friday to Saturday, even a movie like Top Gun: Maverick saw a 27% Friday to Saturday decline. James Cameron has built a reputation of making films that not only demand the big screen experience, but demand to be seen as many times as possible on the big screen. With Titanic, it opened to just $28.6 million, but it held the top spot for an unheard of 15 weeks in a row on its way to a then record breaking $600.7 million domestic total. 

When Avatar was released, it opened to $77 million and didn’t fall out of the top five for 12 weeks on its way to a $749.7 million domestic finish (and $2.7 billion worldwide). All of that is to say: even with a softer than expected opening for The Way of Water, there are really no huge tent pole films until February 17th when Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania is released. That isn’t to say something like Megan or Plane or Knock at the Cabin can’t surprise and come in first place on their respective opening weekends, but it will be a while before The Way of Water drops out of the top five.

As for the film at hand, it has a strong audience score at 94% (by comparison, current Oscar front runner The Fabelmans has an 82% audience score). Having seen it on Thursday I can say that it truly is a big screen spectacle with 3D that is truly something special. I must admit though, I have never been a fan of HFR (high frame rate). For films like this and the Ang Lee film Gemini Man (which is where I first saw HFR 3D) it does give the 3D a much smoother appearance which actually enhances the experience, but the trade off is some shots look like really bad CGI. I definitely noticed that in this one with some shots having that “home video” look as opposed to looking cinematic. I know Cameron’s goal when the sequels were first announced all those years ago was to potentially have these films released with glasses-less 3D technology, which does exist, just not yet on the scale he needed for these movies. So by embracing the under utilized HFR 3D, he was still able to give the viewer an experience they have never had before (unless you saw Gemini Man, but even just 3 years ago the technology wasn’t what Cameron was able to do with it.)

Did you know there were other movies playing in theaters this weekend? And those movies actually made money as well! 

Coming in second place is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with an estimated $5.4 million. The popular Marvel title has amassed a healthy $418.9 million domestic and nearly $800 million worldwide. Third place is the new R rated Christmas classic Violent Night with an estimated $5 million and a domestic total of $34.9 million. Not a bad take for the vengeful Santa. This one will be a part of my yearly viewing alongside other great R rated yuletide classics like Bad Santa, The Night Before and of course Die Hard.

Fourth and fifth place belong to two vastly different movies. First up is the box office bomb Strange World with an estimated $2.2 million and a $33.7 million domestic total. A far cry from its reported $190 million budget. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen this one so I can only go off the trailers, which for my money just didn’t look all that good. Granted, I’m probably not the target demographic for the movie. I wonder if this one has the strength to one day be a cult hit or will it fade into obscurity? Only time will tell. In fifth place however is one of the best movies of the year with The Menu making another $1.7 million to add to its $32.1 million domestic total as it continues its impressive run never falling out of the top five since its release exactly one month ago (November 18). That really is quite impressive given it is an R rated, mysterious film about food! I assure you, the less you know about this gem the better.

The remainder of the top ten are your holdovers Devotion ($825,000), The Fabelmans ($750,000), Black Adam ($500,000), I Heard the Bells ($308,893) and Empire of Light making its debut on the list with $235,000.

Did you venture to theaters this weekend to see the new Avatar movie? Or any other movie for that matter? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to check out our poll where we ask what your favorite of the top 20 grossing films of all time is.