Film / Box Office
Box Office Chart: December 30 2022 – January 1 2023
1. Avatar: The Way of Water £7,643,764 (£44,971,330, 3 weeks)
2. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody £3,325,458 (new release)
3. Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical £2,040,514 (£20,802,429, 6 weeks)
is needed now More than ever
4. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever £436,156 (£33,240,018, 8 weeks)
5. Strange World £280,777 (£3,157,260, 6 weeks)
6. Corsage £203,121 (new release)
7. The Amazing Maurice £113,546 (£355,033, 3 weeks)
8. The Menu £104,463 (£3,611,105, 7 weeks)
9. Violent Night £101,114 (£3,662,081, 5 weeks)
10. Lyle, Lyle Crocodile £88,337 (£12,724,435, 12 weeks)
Chart copyright Comscore
After three weeks at the top, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water finally faced a rival in the form of music biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody. The Whitney Houston flick, with Naomi Ackie in the lead role, had decidedly mixed reviews (“Gobsmackingly awful,” was The Times‘ verdict), but that never hurt the likes of Bohemian Rhapsody, which enjoyed a £9.5m opening back in October 2018. Whitney didn’t stand much chance of toppling Avatar, but that £3.3m opening bodes well for the next few weeks and a singalong version will no doubt be along in a jiffy. The weekend’s only other new entry was Euro costume drama Corsage, which is packing ’em in at the nation’s arthouse cinemas. In third place, Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical has now reached £20m, while the departure of all those Christmas films has permitted The Menu and Lyle, Lyle Crocodile to sneak back into the top ten.
Image credit: Sony Pictures Releasing