Box Office Report: Bridge Over the Way of Water

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 30, 2023 |

By Kayleigh Donaldson | Film | January 30, 2023 |

We may finally see the end of the domination of Avatar: The Way of Water at the box office this week, when M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin opens. Until then, James Cameron can rest easy (probably in his sub at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, he doesn’t seem like a guy who chills out much.) The film, officially the fourth highest-grossing movie of all time, is at the top for the seventh week in a row, with an extra $15.7 million in the bank. That brings its domestic gross to $620.5 million. For those keeping track, it’s now made more money than Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Infinity War, and Spider-Man: No Way Home. It’s only about $70 million away from topping James Cameron’s other box office epic, Titanic. I don’t see it getting to the $2.9 billion of its Na-vi predecessor but hey, surely this puts to rest the doubters who were convinced it’d be a mega-flop or mild disappointment. Consider me put in my place.

The Indian spy drama Pathaan debuted at number five with $5.94 million from only 695 theaters. That puts it way ahead of Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool, which landed at number eight with $2.72 million from 1,835 theaters. Granted, they’re very different films and it’s kind of a miracle that Cronenberg’s ultra-violent horror is getting any kind of mainstream release. Still, it’s a nice reminder of the enduring power of Indian cinema with North American viewers

Right behind Infinity Pool is a horror of another kind: Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist. Did you know they were still making these films? And that the antichrist is called Nicolae Carpathia? Jeez, Garth Marenghi is more subtle than these hacks. Anyhoo, this new addition in the, uh, saga, made $2.36 million from 1,405 theaters. So, objectively speaking, Brandon Cronenberg getting Alexander Skarsgard into a dog collar is more powerful than the antichrist. I like that dogma.

The concert film Billie Eilish Live at the O2 grossed $1.29 million from 600 theaters, while the horror movie Fear brought in the extremely precise amount of $1,280,942 from 974 locations. The family dramedy Maybe I Do received terrible reviews and grossed a mere $562,000 from 465 theaters. Belgium landed a Best International Feature nomination at the Oscars last week, which helped it open with a gross of $68,143 from only four theaters. One of my favourite films of 2022, Mia Hansen-Love’s One Fine Morning, brought in $14,282 from three cinemas.

Speaking of the Oscars, the nominations led to an expected bounce in grosses from some of the frontrunners. Everything Everywhere All at Once now has a domestic gross of over $71 million. Women Talking got a 167% boost as it added 552 theaters to its run, while The Fabelmans got a 73% increase after getting another 1000 theaters under its belt. The biggest boost from the previous week came for Living. Bolstered by Bill Nighy’s Best Actor nomination, it got an impressive 402% push.

Yet it is worth noting how few of these awards season titles are making big cash. Aside from EEAAO, which opened a year ago and had a slow burn word-of-mouth-driven run, even the most acclaimed titles of 2022 aren’t seeing dividends with audiences. Viewers are waiting for streaming releases, seeing such titles as not being necessary for the ‘cinematic experience’ as the average blockbuster. We saw this trend occurring pre-COVID but the lockdown has cemented the change.

This coming week sees the release of the comedy 80 for Brady, the horror Knock at the Cabin, and the Terry Pratchett animated adaptation The Amazing Maurice.

You can check out the rest of the weekend box office here.