The bomb cyclone has brought freezing temperatures, high winds, snow and ice to most of the country.

The Christmas time is usually one of the most lucrative times of the year for Hollywood studios and theater owners. This year is an exception, due to Storm Elliott and ongoing concerns about COVID-19, the flu and the RSV virus.

In a bummer for the year-end box office, Christmas weekend revenue could be down as much as 50 percent from 2019 — before the pandemic struck — and, more worrisome, 33 percent from 2021. Hollywood will have a better sense of the landscape on Monday. Another bummer: it’s never great when Christmas Eve falls on a Saturday and Christmas on a Sunday. Put another way, studios are already looking to next week to make up for lost ground.

Avatar 2 will easily win the four-day holiday weekend in North America with an estimated Friday-Monday gross of $82 million (rivals have it higher) from 4,202 theaters. The big-budget tentpole finished Sunday with a domestic total of $253.7 million and $855.4 million globally. By the end of Monday, the worldwide number will near or cross $900 million worldwide after two weeks in release. Overseas, The Way of Water collected a sizable $168.6 million over Christmas weekend (three days) for a foreign total through Sunday of $601.7 million.

DreamWorks Animation and Universal’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, which opened midweek and received an A CinemaScore, will come in No. 2 with a projected four-day holiday gross of $17.8 million and six-day opening of $24.7 million from 4,099 theaters.

The family picture should launch in the $30 million to $35 million range. Its performance underscores ongoing concern about the strength of family market as the industry recovers from the pandemic.

Overseas, The Last Wish has earned a total of $32.5 million for a projected global cume of $57.2 million through Monday.

Paramount’s star-packed Babylon received a C+ CinemaScore and is a major disappointment. Damien Chazelle’s period Hollywood movie, which runs north of three hours, is projected for a four-day opening of $5.3 million from 3,343 theaters.

At the specialty box office, The Whale is expanding into a total of 603 cinemas over Christmas. The A24 film is expected to earn roughly $1.4 million for the four-day weekend.

Sarah Polley’s acclaimed Women Talking opened Friday in eight theaters. The MGM and UAR film, like numerous other titles, is no doubt being impacted by freezing temperatures in markets such as New York. The film is projecting a $53,000 four-day debut for a location average of $6,664.

Sony Pictures Classics’ Living opened in three locations in New York and Los Angeles for an estimated four-day gross of $17,300 and location average of roughly $7,078.