On Thursday, I published the first half of my 22 predictions for 2022. So today, without further suspense, I present the second half of the list.
1. Wakanda vs. Pandora: Assuming star Letitia Wright resolves her ankle/vaccine issues and production resumes, Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Nov. 11) should top 2022’s re-invigorated (but not nearly “normal”) box office. The original, starring the late Chadwick Boseman, grossed $1.3 billion in 2018, and remember that 2015’s Furious 7 is still the top-grossing Fast/Furious movie, thanks to the emotions surrounding star Paul Walker’s tragic death. Director Ryan Coogler will no doubt incorporate Boseman into BP2 in some way, so if Disney handles the marketing as deftly as Universal did, the movie should be gigantic. Even so, Disney’s other contender for the throne could surprise all the James Cameron naysayers. Avatar 2 is already strong on the latest Quorum awareness/interest surveys, and the storyline and characters actually feel fresh, according to one (non-Disney!) source who has seen footage, especially Kate Winslet. No, it won’t come anywhere near the $2.7 billion grossed by the 2009 original, which benefited from the 3D craze, especially overseas. But Avatar is still the only movie to ever gross $2 billion internationally–a total which included $261 million in China at a time when there were far fewer theaters in the country. After Spider-Man was snubbed, who knows if Avatar 2 will even get a Chinese release? Still, I’m predicting a close second place behind Wakanda.
2. Brother, can you spare a streaming subscriber? As subscription growth slows in the U.S., increasingly desperate streamers will prowl for smaller outlets (and their subs). It’s not just to pad the overall sign-up numbers; these platforms are thirsty for fresh content, and the best-case is franchise content, which has shown to keep subs as well. A good model is Peacock-WWE. Last March, NBC Universal took over the pro wrestling outfit’s WWE Network and its 1.1. million subs, offering them a deal on Peacock for their Roman Reigns fix. Check out these internal Peacock stats that came to me from a source:
