Director James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water will claim its seventh straight weekend at number one, with a projected finish between $14 million and $16 million at the box office. With $3.5 million this Friday — down just 24% from last week — The Way of Water’s running domestic total stands at an astonishing $608 million.
The epic science-fiction sequel is currently just outside the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time, and by mid-week, it will surpass The Avengers’ $623 million haul to become the 10th-biggest film ever at the domestic box office. Globally, the film has made more than $2.07 billion, and has now overtaken the lifetime haul of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The film will now settle into the fourth spot on the all-time list, behind another Cameron blockbuster, Titanic ($2.2 billion).
This means that the celebrated filmmaker will be responsible for three of the four biggest movies of all time at the global box office. The first Avatar remains the biggest film in history, with $2.89 billion worldwide. The Way of Water is the biggest movie of 2022, the biggest movie of the pandemic and post-pandemic eras, and only the sixth movie ever to pass $2 billion at the global box office.
Smaller distributors are taking advantage of no new major wide release this weekend. Leading the pack is Yash Raj Films’ Hindi-language action-thriller Pathaan, starring Bollywood’s biggest star Shah Rukh Khan. The film opened mid-week in India, where it has already broken box office records. Pathaan is eyeing a $5.75 million debut weekend from nearly 700 theaters, and will pass $8.4 million domestically by Sunday. The film delivered the best per-theater average of any release this Friday, and is expected to land in the top five this weekend once the final figures come in.
Elsewhere, director Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool is looking at a $3 million debut, which will put it ahead of the $2.4 million lifetime haul posted by his father David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future last year. Incidentally, both films were released by NEON. Fathom Events’ faith-based Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist is looking at a $2.3 million debut; Chinese sequel Wandering Earth II is delivering a $1.3 million weekend, which is around the same as Billie Eilish: Live at the 02.
Universal’s release of Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots: The Last Wish registered another minimal weekend-to-weekend drop, as it grossed $2.4 million on its sixth Friday. The animated sequel, which comes over a decade after the original Puss in Boots clawed its way to $555 million worldwide, has now made $132 million domestically, and over $300 million worldwide. It will hit the $140 million mark by Sunday.
Sony’s adult-skewing A Man Called Otto continued to over-perform. The crowd-pleasing comedy drama added $1.9 million on its fifth Friday, as it lumbers towards the $50 million mark domestically. The Tom Hanks-starrer, based on the bestselling Swedish novel A Man Called Ove, has made $41 million domestically so far, and will finish the weekend with $45 million in the bank. The buzzy original horror film M3GAN rounded out the top five with $1.6 million on its fourth Friday. The film’s running domestic total now stands at a healthy $77 million, and will pass $80 million by the weekend.
You can watch our interview with Infinity Pool stars Mia Goth and Alexander Skarsgård here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.