Box Office: 'Avatar: The Way of the Water' Rules the New Year, Global Revenue Hits $1.38 Billion

Audiences rang in 2023 with a trip to Pandora, like "Avatar: The Way of Water" by James Cameron continued to dominate the holiday box office.

The ambitious - and insanely expensive - sci-fi epic has been in the works for years, blowing beyond multiple release dates as Cameron has found a way to stretch his story of a race of alien creatures battling hostile invaders across five planned films. He also worked to create new technology that would allow him to do performance capture work underwater. The wait seems to have been worth it. “Avatar: The Way of Water” grossed $63.4 million domestically over New Years weekend and is projected to gross $82.4 million over the four-day holiday (most people have Mondays off and many of them will apparently spend that day with the Na'vi).

But all this innovation didn't come cheap and Cameron suggested that to generate profit for Disney , the company that bought the rights to "Avatar" when it bought much of 21st Century Fox in 2019, the film is set to be one of the highest-grossing films in history. Sources put the break-even point for "Avatar: The Way of the Water" at around $1.4 billion, a figure it's about to surpass.

Here's where things stand. So far, the film has grossed $421.6 million domestically and $956.9 million internationally. Its worldwide gross stands at $1.38 billion. The 'Avatar' sequel is now the fifteenth highest worldwide release of all time, just behind 'Black Panther' and ahead of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2'. So it's in a pretty rare business venture.

"Avatar: The Way of Water" was basically the only game in town when it came to New An Watching the day before. "Puss In Boots: The Last Wish" from Universal and DreamWorks Animation came in second, which grossed $16.3 million over the weekend and is expected to gross $21.7 million over the four days. vacation. That would bring the national total for the animated adventure to just over $66 million.

Disney and Marvel's "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" took third place, earning 4.8 million this weekend and a projected $6.5 million over the four-day holiday. Its domestic total is $438 million, while its worldwide gross is $818.5 million.

In fourth place, "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody" by Sony and Tri-Star earned $4.2 million for the weekend and $5.4 million for the four-day vacation. That leaves the biopic about the troubled pop icon with $16 million in domestic revenue, a jarring result for a film with a $45 million budget.

Paramount's "Babylon", a look at all the drugs and debauchery that made money Hollywood's silent era a real blur, rounded out the top five even as it struggled to attract audiences. The $80 million drama grossed $2.7 million over the weekend and is only expected to make $3.6 million over the four-day holiday. That would take his domestic gross to a disastrous $11 million and change. It's a big loser and the sole bane of what has been an incredible run for Paramount - the studio scored with "The Lost City", "Scream", "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" and "Top Gun: Maverick".

Among prestige fare is A24's "The Whale," a drama about a professor of obese college who received rave reviews for Brendan Fraser, won $372,950 on New Year's Eve. He is expected to bring in $1.7 million over the four-day holiday, bringing his total to $6.2 million dollars.

Sony's "A Man Called Otto", a late entry in the Oscar hunt that stars Tom Hanks as a depressed widower, won $75,000 from four places for the long weekend. This translates to a solid average of $18,750 per placement.