Oh, look. Avatar: The Way of Water was #1 again. Yay.
Well, I’ve been saying since last year that January was going to be slow and it has been, although a few new releases have managed to create ripples, like M3gan. But James Cameron’s 3D CGI spectacle continues to dominate. This weekend, it earned another $15.7M, bringing its domestic total to $620.5M. Worldwide, it has earned $620.58M. In the U.S. and Canada, The Way of Water is now the 11th-highest-grossing movie ever, surpassing Star Wars: The Last Jedi and it is pretty much guaranteed to beat the current #10 film, Avengers which made $620.1M during its theatrical run. It may even do so before this week is over.
Once again, it’s been a pretty slow January (which is typical), so most of the Top Five is the same as it was last weekend, just with lower numbers and some shuffled positioning. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish remains at #2, however, Tom Hanks’ older-skewing A Man Called Otto jumped to #3, with M3gan slipping to #4.
The last three weeks have seen a revolving door of freshmen releases that blip into the Top Five for one week and are gone. Two weeks ago, it was the European-targeted Gerard Butler action movie Plane. Last week, another low-budget pic, Missing debuted at #3 but has slipped out of the Top Five.
This week, the newbie is pretty interesting. The Indian spy flick Pathaan directed by Siddharth Anand landed at #5. The picture stars Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, and John Abraham and follows a spy taking on a group of mercenaries that have targeted his homeland. It has an 88% Rotten Tomatoes score with an 82% certified audience score.
Of course, this isn’t something that’s going to appeal to a huge audience in the U.S. and Canada. Like Plane and Missing, it will drop out of the Top Five next week as a semi-large new movie is coming out.
Check out the Top Five below:
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- Avatar: The Way of Water(Disney) – 3-day $15.7M/ Total $620.5M/Wk 7
- Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (Universal) – 3-day $10.6M/ Total $140.8M/Wk 6
- A Man Called Otto (Sony)- 3-day $6.75M/ Total $46M, Wk 5
- M3GAN(Universal/Blumhouse) – 3-day $6.37M/ Total $82.2M/Wk 4
- Pathaan(Yash Raj Films) – 3-day $5.95M/ Total $8.5M/Wk 1
As mentioned, a higher profile pic arrives next weekend with M. Night Shyamalan’s latest thriller, Knock at the Cabin. Jonathan Groff and Ben Aldridge portray a couple that takes their daughter, played by Kristen Cui, to a remote cabin on vacation only to be taken captive by a group of strangers, including Dave Bautista and Rupert Grint, who demand that they sacrifice one of their own to prevent the apocalypse.
So far, early buzz is that this is another of Shyamalan’s better works, like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable as opposed to some of his misses like Lady in the Water and The Happening.
Will you be checking this film out? Or anything else?
