Broadway Box Office Drops Back To Earth After Holiday Week Highs; ‘Beetlejuice’ Goes Out With A Bang As Industry Crosses $1B Season Threshold

Even on a specialty level, horror just works post-pandemic with the latest pop from a strong showing by a trio of films, Fear and Infinity Pool, released this weekend, and Skinamarink in week three.

The Oscar nominations this week set off a new round of speculation about corporate image: Does it matter that Netflix’s potential Oscar take had dropped to 16 from 36 in 2020?

With a slimmed-down roster and many productions offering 2 for 1 tickets during the annual Broadway Week promotion, Broadway box office was down 24% for the week ending January 22, with the 23-show total at $25,835,362. Attendance of 204,847 was off 17% from the previous week when 29 shows were on the boards.

Over the past month, the conversation around “Avatar: The Way of Water” has shifted from, “Will it make money?” to “How much money will it make?” James Cameron‘s much-anticipated — or much-derided, depending on where you sit in the contemporary culture wars — was always expected to make money, but everyone has been shocked at its impact at the global box office. Once it became clear that the movie was going to outperform even its most ambitious expectations, the only question became whether this movie could possibly topple the original “Avatar.” And while that remains an open question, in at least one regard, Cameron’s sequel has already proven itself ahead of the pace.

Over the past month, the conversation around “Avatar: The Way of Water” has shifted from, “Will it make money?” to “How much money will it make?” James Cameron‘s much-anticipated — or much-derided, depending on where you sit in the contemporary culture wars — was always expected to make money, but everyone has been shocked at its impact at the global box office. Once it became clear that the movie was going to outperform even its most ambitious expectations, the only question became whether this movie could possibly topple the original “Avatar.” And while that remains an open question, in at least one regard, Cameron’s sequel has already proven itself ahead of the pace.

Broadway lost six productions on January 15 – including the top-grossing The Music Man – to the usual January roster-thinning, and each show went out on a happy note with strong attendance.

A24’s The Whale crossed the $11-million mark in week six as it jumped to 1,500 screens from 835 as the Brendan Fraser-starrer and other contenders continue to tweak theatrical runs through awards season.

It is a blockbuster morning as far as the Producers Guild of America is concerned as it revealed film and TV nominations Thursday for its 34th annual PGA Awards.

James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water will reign supreme in its fifth weekend over the four-day MLK holiday frame with an estimated take around $35M.

Courtney Love would be happy about this news!

The curtain is being raised Thursday night on what looks to be an idiosyncratic festival awards season, as organizers of the Palm Springs Gala to kick off the Palm Springs Film Festival with a hope that audiences somewhere, somehow, will start talking about movies.

Hong Kong’s box office managed to stage a partial recovery in the second half of 2022, despite cinemas being closed for nearly four months earlier in the year, due to US titles including Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way Of Water and a strong line-up of local movies.

Big holiday ticket prices, bonus performances and large audiences spurred a hefty surge of nearly 50% in Broadway box office last week (ending Jan. 1) over the previous week, with productions including Funny Girl, MJ, Six, Beetlejuice and & Juliet among the shows smashing house records.

Before the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” James Cameron made a lot of headlines after declaring his new film would need to be one of the Top 5 highest-grossing films of all time just to break even. Many took that quote and extrapolated that Cameron wanted ‘The Way of Water’ to hit $2 billion to become profitable during its theatrical run.

China’s box office in 2022 dropped 36% versus 2021, reaching approximately RMB 30B ($4.35B). According to China.org, citing figures from the China Film Administration, 85% of the 2022 revenue was generated by local movies, led by The Battle at Lake Changjin II with RMB 4.07B ($636M at historical rates, per comScore). This past weekend, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water became the highest-grossing studio import of the year, overtaking Jurassic World Dominion with an estimated $152.8M through Sunday.

When it was originally announced, Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” seemed like a no-brainer, Oscar favorite. An epic tale of Old Hollywood, written and directed by the filmmaker behind “Whiplash,” “La La Land,” and “First Man.” That’s such an easy sell.