\u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d dominated at the box office on Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n
James Cameron\u2019s third sci-fi epic unwrapped $10.7 million on Wednesday from 3,800 North American theaters. That\u2019s less than its predecessor, 2022\u2019s $2 billion behemoth \u201cAvatar: The Way of Water,\u201d which earned $14.8 million on Christmas Eve. However that year, Christmas Eve fell on a Saturday, which is a much more popular day of the week for moviegoing.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/p>\n
\u201cAvatar 3,\u201d from Disney\u2019s 20th Century Studios, is projected to collect $75 million to $80 million between Thursday and Sunday. So far, the big-budget film has grossed $129.6 million domestically and $353.7 million overseas, bringing its global tally to $483.3 million after a week of release.<\/p>\n
Three new films \u2014 A24\u2019s Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet-led sports dramedy \u201cMarty Supreme,\u201d the Focus Features musical drama \u201cSong Sung Blue\u201d and Sony\u2019s disaster comedy \u201cAnaconda\u201d \u2014 were playing in previews ahead of their Christmas Day debuts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnaconda\u201d made $2.1 million from 2,808 theaters during Wednesday\u2019s previews. The PG-13 adventure is expected to secure around $20 million between Thursday and Sunday. A $45 million-budgeted meta-reboot, \u201cAnaconda\u201d follows best friends who travel to the jungle to pursue their childhood dream of remaking their all-time favorite movie (you guessed it!) 1997\u2019s \u201cAnaconda.\u201d The project starts to unravel when life imitates art and a real anaconda begins hunting them down.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarty Supreme\u201d was ever-so-slightly behind \u201cAnaconda\u201d on box office charts with $2.01 million from 2,668 venues during Wednesday\u2019s previews. After one weekend in limited release, the R-rated film has generated $3.15 million to date. \u201cMarty Supreme\u201d is targeting a launch above $20 million through the four-day holiday frame. That\u2019s a great start for the arthouse film, which carries a hefty $70 million budget. It helps that Chalamet, who stars as the fictional table tennis champ Marty Mauser, has been a one-man marketing machine<\/a>, going to great lengths \u2014 and heights<\/a> \u2014 to get out the word about the original film, directed by Josh Safdie of \u201cUncut Gems\u201d fame.<\/p>\n \u201cSong Sung Blue\u201d didn\u2019t report Wednesday previews. The feel-good film is projected to earn $10 million to $14 million from 2,400 theaters in its first weekend of release. Brewer directed the $30 million-budgeted movie, featuring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson in the true story of two down-on-their luck musicians who form a Neil Diamond tribute band.<\/p>\n Meanwhile Disney\u2019s animated juggernaut \u201cZootopia 2\u201d outpaced the other newcomers in second place on Wednesday charts with $3.2 million from 3,540 cinemas. Since its debut around Thanksgiving, the PG film has generated $296 million domestically and $1.3 billion globally, making \u201cZootopia 2\u201d the highest-grossing Hollywood release of the year.<\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d dominated at the box office on Christmas Eve. James Cameron\u2019s third sci-fi epic unwrapped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[56354,49,48,157491,75,43424,337,114119],"class_list":["post-369713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-anaconda","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-christmas-eve","tag-entertainment","tag-marty-supreme","tag-movies","tag-song-sung-blue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}