The domestic box office is witnessing a calm before the storm as holdover hit Black Panther: Wakanda Forever eyes a fourth weekend at the number one spot, but with muted numbers. The runway is now all clear for Avatar: The Way of Water to land on December 16. With $4.4 million on its fourth Friday, Wakanda Forever is eying a $15 million weekend.
This should take the Marvel superhero sequel’s running domestic total to just over $390 million. The film will comfortably cross the $400 million mark domestically before The Way of Water…blows it out of the water in less than a fortnight. Globally, the film is passing the $700 million mark as we speak.
A follow-up to director Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster 2018 film, Wakanda Forever has a high benchmark for success. The first film made $700 million in the U.S. alone, and finished its global run with an astounding $1.3 billion. Wakanda Forever should be in the clear just as long as it outperforms the two other Marvel Cinematic Universe releases of 2022 — Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($955 million) and Thor: Love and Thunder ($760 million).
Coming in at the number two spot is Universal’s Christmas-themed action-comedy Violent Night, directed by Tommy Wirkola and starring David Harbour as a Viking-like Santa Claus. The film made $4.8 million on Friday for an estimated opening weekend of just under $12 million. Violent Night is playing at over 3,600 theaters nationwide, and cost approximately $20 million to produce. The B+ CinemaScore from opening day audiences should bode well for its prospects through the holiday season.
Disney’s notorious animated bomb Strange World will take the third spot with an estimated $4.4 million after a $1 million second Friday. The film grossly underperformed over the extended Thanksgiving weekend, and is expected to lose Disney over $100 million. Produced at a reported budget of $180 million, the pulp adventure-inspired film features the voices of Jake Gyllenhaal and Dennis Quaid, and will hit around $25 million domestically by Sunday.
The fourth and fifth spots will be claimed by Searchlight’s black comedy The Menu, and Sony’s expensive action-war film Devotion. Directed by Succession’s Mark Mylod, The Menu made $1 million on its third Friday, and is looking at a $3.6 million weekend, which should take its running domestic total to just under $25 million. The $90 million Devotion, on the other hand, is significantly underperforming with an estimated $2.8 million in its second weekend, for a running domestic total of around $13 million.
Unlike the last weekend, when Netflix’s unprecedented nationwide release of Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery made around $15 million before going dark until its streaming debut later this month, there was no silver lining this time around. Overall business for the weekend is expected to generate around $50 million, which is down 4% from the same weekend last year. Even Paramount’s re-release of Top Gun: Maverick — the year’s biggest hit — didn’t make much noise. The film grossed just $180,000 from over 1,800 theaters, and is looking at a $600,000 weekend, which should push its running domestic total past $717 million.
You can watch our interview with Violent Night star Harbour here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
