Weekend predictions: Avatar should keep Plane grounded this weekend

January 13, 2023

Plane

Avatar: The Way of Water will get competition from no less than five films that can claim to be opening or expanding wide this weekend. The most serious threat to its box office dominance comes from Plane, an action thriller starring Gerard Butler and Mike Colter. But in many ways Avatar is continuing to compete against its predecessor for box office history. This looks like another weekend that it will win with ease against more mortal competition.

First up, here’s how Way of Water stacks up compared to the films in our database that have performed most similarly (click on the image for a full interactive chart):

Our models came up with predictions of $41.6 million and $34.1 million for this weekend for Way of Water, and I’ve averaged those two numbers to produce a final official prediction of $37.8 million. The MLK Holiday will help the film a small amount, and it’s probably fair to say that $40 million is a good target for it if it’s going to end up in the $800-million club. Keep in mind that $35 million would still be a very strong result over the 3-day part of the weekend.

Plane isn’t aiming for anything in the stratosphere, but our model wasn’t very optimistic about its chances going into the weekend:

Although the prediction looks a shade on the low side to me, the film’s previews point to almost exactly the same result:

For all the talk of the challenges drama and adult-skewing films have faced since the pandemic, the numbers for action movies haven’t been all that great recently, and Plane doesn’t look as though it’ll reverse that trend. (It should do nicely on VOD though.)

Last up (at least so far as detailed predictions go) is House Party, which arrives in an estimated 1,500 theaters this weekend.

Our model doesn’t think much for the chances for this film, and the final prediction relies heavily on strong audience tracking numbers. Our model might be making too much out of the fact that this is an R-rated comedy, which is a genre that hasn’t produced much at the box office recently. But I think $3 million would be a very good result for this film.

Here’s what our model thinks the top 10 as a whole will look like.

There are a couple of other new films that qualify as wide releases: The Devil Conspiracy and Skinamarink. Neither are expected to show up in the top 10.

Based on all available evidence, this should be another easy weekend win for Avatar: The Way of Water. It could be there for a while, given how strongly it continues to perform and the lack of a surefire hit in the next few weeks.

Where will it finish? Our model says $800 million is on the cards. We’ll know more after this weekend.

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Filed under: Weekend Preview, Avatar: The Way of Water, Plane, House Party, The Devil Conspiracy, Skinamarink, Gerard Butler, Mike Colter