\n\tThe domestic box office continues to fight back after Covid and the Hollywood strikes, and for the third time since the pandemic has eclipsed the $8 billion mark at the domestic box office, according to Comscore on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
\n\tYou can thank the over-performance of Universal\/Blumhouse\u2019s Five Nights at Freddy\u2019s 2 which was expected to top out at a $40M opening, but notched $63M, the best opening and No. 1 haul ever in the historically slow post-Thanksgiving period, among other records. <\/a><\/p>\n \n\tYear-on-year, the current domestic B.O. is 1% ahead of 2024 at the same point in time for the January 1-December 7 span. Last year ended at $8.57 billion, but we have a swing factor this year as to whether we get to $9 billion \u2014 that\u2019s 20th Century Studios\u2019 James Cameron-directed threequel Avatar: Fire and Ash<\/a>, which is eyeing a $110M opening<\/a> beginning December 19. Note, when it comes to an Avatar opening, even if it falls short of its start, they\u2019re always about the long play over the holiday, the title being 3 hours and 15 minutes long (as opposed to 2022\u2019s Avatar: Way of Water\u2018s 3 hours and 12 minutes).<\/p>\n \n\tMoviegoers seek the best seats in any multiplex when it comes to an Avatar movie, even if it\u2019s not on opening weekend. Way of Water grossed $401M at the domestic box office in the final 16 days of 2022 for a final take of $684M in its first cycle (its lifetime cume is at $688M after this past fall\u2019s rerelease). The post-Covid box office time frame commenced in 2021 after a majority of the nation\u2019s theaters were closed, from March 2020-March 2021.<\/p>\n \n\tAlso, in the mix to bolster the year-end holiday frame is Lionsgate\u2019s The Housemaid starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, Paramount\u2019s Spongebob Movie: The Search for SquarePants, Angel Studios\u2019 David and A24\u2019s Marty Supreme on December 19, followed by Sony\u2019s adventure comedy Anaconda and Focus Features\u2019 Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson musical dramedy Song Sung Blue on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n \n\tComscore\u2019s Head of Marketplace Trends Paul Dergarabedian told Deadline, \u201cWith less than a month to go in the box office year, the $8B domestic YTD threshold has finally been reached through Sunday as movie theaters are presenting an eclectic selection of films from major and independent distributors thus creating a cinematic traffic jam of sorts that\u2019s developing over the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tHe added, \u201cHowever, it\u2019s shaping up to be a December to remember with literally something for everyone landing on big screens this month. Could the $9B domestic annual revenue threshold be reached? Only once has this happened since 2020 and that was in 2023, the year of\u00a0Barbenheimer, so it will be a challenge to hit that mark this year.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The domestic box office continues to fight back after Covid and the Hollywood strikes, and for the third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[34531,88,28949,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-335686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-avatar-fire-and-ash","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-five-nights-at-freddys-2","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}