• Universal’s Knock at the Cabin shoots for a $14.5 million opening.
• The newest thriller from director Shyamalan made $5.4 million on Friday.
• This is less than the $6.8 million that the director’s most recent feature.

The moment has arrived, and Avatar: The Way of Water is about to give up the crown it has held for the past seven weekends. The big sci-fi sequel from director James Cameron is expected to fall to third place on the weekend box office list for the first time since its release in December as Universal’s Knock at the Cabin shoots for a $14.5 million opening.

The newest thriller from director M. Night Shyamalan made $5.4 million on Friday, including Thursday previews, when it made its debut in more than 3,600 theatres throughout the country.

This is less than the $6.8 million that the director’s most recent feature, Old, brought in on its first day of release in 2021. On its route to a domestic total of $48 million and a worldwide total of $89 million, Old made $16.8 million in its opening weekend. This looks like a small opening, even if Knock at the Cabin’s production cost $20 million as opposed to Old’s $18 million, even though it underperformed earlier this week’s predictions by at least $5 million.

After receiving both critical and commercial backlash about ten years ago, Shyamalan has enjoyed a rather successful second act as a director. Even while they haven’t been able to win the same level of critical praise as some of his earlier hits, his last four movies have all been financially successful. The Twilight Zone-related Knock at the Cabin received a worrisome C CinemaScore from viewers on opening day, which might have an impact on its performance in the future. Shyamalan has now finished at number one seven times.

The movie only barely beat over Paramount’s 80 for Brady, which is doing well with older viewers, similar to how Sony’s A Man Called Otto has been doing for the past month. With Thursday previews included, the movie brought in $4.7 million on Friday. It is projected to earn $13 million in its first weekend. Starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Sally Field and Rita Moreno, 80 for Brady was pulled from a direct-to-streaming release, and managed to successfully attract its target demographic to the theatres — the breakdown shows that nearly half the film’s audience was over 55, and nearly 70% were women.

The Way of Water fell to number three on Friday after a $2.4 million eighth. The movie is anticipating a $10.2 million weekend, bringing its overall domestic gross to $635 million. The movie is about to surpass Titanic’s lifetime earnings to take third place overall on the all-time list. Cameron has remarkably helmed three of the top four highest-grossing films of all time.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and Fathom’s specialized release of The Chosen Season 3 took the fourth and fifth places, respectively. In its seventh weekend, Puss in Boots 2 brought in $1.69 million, giving it a projected $7.9 million weekend total.

This will increase the domestic total to above $151 million, which is a fantastic outcome for the animated follow-up. The Chosen’s first weekend is expected to bring in $6.6 million.

This weekend’s total revenue is anticipated to be in the $80 million level, a solid 37% increase from the same weekend last year. Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the following big film scheduled for release, is anticipated to open to a $120 million domestic gross. Watch our conversation with Shyamalan here, and keep checking Collider for new information.

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