‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Eyes $75M New Year’s Stretch, Will Cross $400M Mark At Weekend Box Office

Avatar The Way of Water‘s 3rd Friday is on its way to $22M+, which is up 15% from its second Friday of $19.2M a week ago and will put the sequel’s 15-day total at around $380M. Today’s gross is also bigger than Rogue One‘s third Friday of $18.2M. This looks to be shaping up for a third 3-day weekend of $57M, -10%, and 4-day of $75M, maybe even a bit more at 4,202 theaters. By EOD Monday, Jan. 2, the 20th Century Studios/Disney/Lightstorm movie hopes to stand at $433.1M stateside.

Universal/DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is eyeing a second Friday of $5.3M, +39% from a week ago, for a 3-day of $13.3M (+7%), 4-day of $17.7M at 4,121 theaters, and a running total through 13 days of $62.1M, -33% behind Sing 2 versus the same point in time.

Disney/Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever in its 8th Friday is seeing around $1.6M, a 3-day of $4.7M (+33%), 4-day of $6.4M and running total in its 8th weekend of $439.3M. The sequel is in play at 2,310 theaters.

Sony/Compelling Pictures/Black Label Media’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody is seeing a second Friday of $1.3M, -35%, and a second weekend of $3.7M, -22% and 4-day of $4.9M for an 11-day total of $15.4M. The Whitney Houston biopic is booked at 3,625 theaters.

Paramount/C2’s Babylon at 3,351 theaters is seeing $850K today, $2.9M for its second weekend, -19%, and a 4-day of $3.3M raising its 11-day total $10.7M. The movie will soon surpass the lifetime domestic total of Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, a dark, R-rated high brow adult title from last Christmas which finaled at $11.3M. Nightmare Alley was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture.

PREVIOUS FRIDAY AM: It was another $20M day for James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, so big that it was the biggest regular box office Thursday of the year after the sequel’s Dec. 22 take of $14.6M and Top Gun: Maverick‘s June 2 gross. The movie’s running total is $358M stateside with a 3-day expected to be around $50M and will cross the $400M threshold on New Year’s Day per box office sources. New Year’s Eve Saturday isn’t expected to be as depressed as Christmas Eve was a week ago.

To date, the Disney/20th Century Studios/Lightstorm movie has the following daily 2022 records: top and second grossing Thursday, the 2nd and 3rd highest Mondays of the year, the 1st and 2nd highest Tuesdays, and 1st and 3rd highest Wednesday.

Total Thursday global was $67.9M. Overseas B.O. total cume is $810.6M –surpassing Top Gun: Maverick‘s $770M to become the No. 1 international release of 2022 and No. 2 MPA title abroad in the pandemic era. Ongoing worldwide total for Avatar 2 is $1.168 billion.

We hear Comscore is down this AM, preventing others from reporting numbers. Disney didn’t have any problems, clearly.