The prestige pictures are supposed to be showing up and making some box office noise on this, the second weekend of December.

But “Empire of Light” won’t manage much, “The Whale” isn’t opening wide and “Spoiler Alert” is neither a contender nor anything anybody’s heard about, a movie that “escaped” rather than was released by those cinema smugglers at Focus Features.

“Avatar” is on the way, and until it gets here, nothing but empty cineplexes as “Wakanda” makes a decent $11 million, “Violent Night” pulls in another $8, “Strange World” bombs and “The Menu” and “Devotion” fail to stop the bleeding.

I don’t know if a big Netflix rollout of “Pinocchio” and a bigger push for “Glass Onion” would have made a difference or not.

“Avatar 2” should have been a Thanksgiving movie, theater owners would be right to argue.

When all the tickets sold add up to $37 million, Hollywood’s lack of product is a death sentence for your local cineplex.