Note that some variation in the final tally is possible,depending on which start and end dates are used. An alternative set of figures seen by this masthead suggests the figure might be as high as $943 million,which would nonetheless still represent a decline of more than 23 per cent on 2019.
More than 690 movies had some sort of cinema release in 2022,but few of them did serious business. The top 10 films accounted for almost half (48.9 per cent) of all ticket revenue. Just 87 films made more than $1 million locally,and more than 400 of them made less than $100,000.
Top Gun:Maverick is the year’s top-grossing film,with $93.09 million.Avatar:The Way of Water – which is classified as a US-New Zealand co-production (Cameron is now permanently resident in New Zealand and plans to make up to three moreAvatar films there) – leapt from fourth spot to second over the weekend,finishing 2022 with $51.42 million after releasing on December 15.
James Cameron’s film has earned just under $US1.4 billion ($2.05 billion) globally in a little over two weeks. Its strong performance locally owes much to lack of competition in the blockbuster space,and a saturation release strategy that saw it go out on 1281 screens nationwide – roughly half of all cinema screens in the country.
That is the largest release ever,dwarfing even the 888 screens on whichTop Gun:Maverick debuted.
Avatar’s dominance has been a double-edged sword for cinema operators,though. Its 192-minute run time means they can schedule only three sessions a day (as opposed to the five available for most titles),but it also means customers can be charged $50 or more to see the film in 3D in a boutique theatre (or much less in 2D in a standard theatre),while some other releases can only be seen in higher-priced theatres because of a lack of screens.