According to the studio’s estimates on Sunday, “Avatar: Path of Water” topped the domestic box office charts for the seventh straight week with an additional $15.7 million.
An overall quiet weekend, with particular focus on the top five Hindi blockbuster ‘Pathaan’ and re-releases of Oscar-winning films like ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ and ‘The Fabelmans’ it was done.
Avatar 2’s number one North American hit was matched only by the original Avatar, and has beaten Titanic (which held the number one spot for 15 weeks) in the past 25 years. All three films were directed by James Cameron.
Globally, “Water Path” grossed an estimated $2.1 billion, making it the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” (Cameron has is supervising).
Coming in at number two is Puss in Boots: Last Wish from Universal and DreamWorks, which made $10.6 million in its sixth weekend. The animated spin-off earned him over $140.8 million in North America and was recently made available to stream at home as well.
In third place was Sony’s “The Man Called Otto,” which earned $6.8 million from 3,957 locations. For the first time in five years, the Indian movie “Pattern,” starring Shah Rukh Ka, ranked fourth.
And memetic horror M3GAN, a universal release, rounded out the top five with $6.4 million in its fourth weekend, bringing its domestic total to $82.3 million.
Neon also premiered Infinity Pools, a horror film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg and starring Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgard, in 1,853 locations after its Sundance debut. His romantic comedy “Maybe I Do” starring Diane Keaton, Richard Gere and Susan Sarandan earned him $562,000 on 465 screens. Also, Lucas Dont’s Cannes Award-winning boyhood drama The Close opened on his four screens in New York and Los Angeles, earning $68,143.
Many studios boasting best picture contenders have also taken advantage of Tuesday’s Oscar contenders buzz to select quite a few re-releases. It ran on 1,400 screens and made an additional $1 million. A24’s release so far has earned him $71 million domestically. Steven Spielberg’s “Favellmans,” which was nominated for seven Academy Awards, also expanded to 1,962 screens in North America, where he also spent $760,000, bringing his domestic total to $16 million. Also, Sarah Polley’s “Women Talking” added hundreds of screens and earned her $1 million over the weekend. He has earned $2.4 million to date. The Oscar boost could continue for the next few weeks — the show won’t be on until March 12th.
Some of the weekend’s most high-profile releases, both star-driven comedies, quickly made their way to streaming. , with Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel and Jennifer Coolidge.
With “Avatar 2” just seven weekends away, theater owners may be looking for the next blockbuster, but that’s still a long way off. ‘Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantomania’ doesn’t arrive in theaters until February 17th.
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr.
