<\/p>\n
NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 With a winter storm<\/a> blanketing a large swath of the country, Hollywood had its quietest weekend of the year at the box office. The Amazon MGM sci-fi thriller \u201cMercy\u201d<\/a> dethroned \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d<\/a> from the No. 1 spot with $11.2 million in North America, according to studio estimates Sunday. <\/p>\n Hundreds of theaters were forced to close due to the storm, from Texas to Maine. More than 140 million Americans were under winter storm warnings, depressing moviegoing. <\/p>\n But the weekend was never going to be a blockbuster one, anyway. \u201cMercy,\u201d a $60 million thriller starring Chris Pratt as a man in a near-future standing trial before an AI judge, was the top new release. It arrived with withering reviews (20% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and an equally poor reception (a \u201cB-\u201d CinemaScore) from audiences. <\/p>\n That was still enough to finally dislodge James Cameron’s third Pandora epic from its monthlong perch<\/a> atop the box office. \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d slid to second place with $7 million. While The Walt Disney Co. release is starting to peter out domestically, it remains a top draw overseas. It took in $28.1 million internationally in its sixth weekend. <\/p>\n \u201cAvatar: Fire and Ash\u201d isn’t going to come close to the box-office heights of the previous two \u201cAvatar\u201d movies. The 2009 original grossed $2.9 billion and the 2022 sequel, \u201cThe Way of Water,\u201d<\/a> tapped out at $2.3 billion. \u201cFire and Ash\u201d has now cleared $1 billion internationally, but its domestic haul ($378.5 million) is well off the pace of the other two films. <\/p>\n The \u201cOscar bump\u201d that films once saw following nomination is largely a thing of the past. The lead movies in Thursday’s nominations<\/a> \u2014 \u201cSinners\u201d and \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d \u2014 long ago completed their theatrical runs. But a handful of nominees saw strong business. <\/p>\n Chlo\u00e9 Zhao’s \u201cHamnet,\u201d<\/a> nominated for eight Oscars including best picture, collected $2 million in its first weekend of wide release. The Shakespeare drama, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, has been in theaters for two months, steadily increasing its theatrical footprint. It’s up to $17.6 million domestically and $42.1 million worldwide. <\/p>\n Josh Safdie’s \u201cMarty Supreme,\u201d<\/a> nominated for nine Oscars, earned $3.5 million in its sixth weekend of release. The A24 title, starring Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet<\/a>, this week cross $100 million globally. It’s made $86.2 million domestically thus far. <\/p>\n But newer releases struggled. \u201cReturn to Silent Hill,\u201d the third installment in a horror series kick-started with 2006’s \u201cSilent Hill,\u201d opened with $3.2 million. Though Sony released the 2006 film and Open Road distributed the 2012 follow up, the low-budget \u201cReturn to Silent Hill\u201d was put out by Iconic Events. <\/p>\n