'M3GAN' Has Big Opening Weekend, 'Avatar' Continues to Roll

Avatar: The Way of Water wasn't the only movie to draw moviegoers to theaters this weekend, but it was one of only two. The other big draw was M3gan, a horror movie that had a surprisingly strong debut. Other than those two movies, theaters were quiet over the weekend, as the ripples from Avatar's big holiday splash begin to fade. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

While Avatar: The Way of Water remains the major box office story one week into the new year and should continue to dominate in the weeks ahead, this weekend the film received a worthy companion to help power the January box office. The sci-fi horror film M3GAN, which comes from the lucrative Blumhouse/James Wan partnership, smashed expectations to boast a frighteningly good $30.2 million opening. That wasn’t enough to dethrone James Cameron’s latest epic, which grossed $45 million in its fourth weekend, but the two films were able to carry an overall box office of $104 million. It’s the first weekend since July where two films grossed above $20 million, the sixth weekend since July where the overall box office hit the nine-digits, and the second time since July that two weekends in a row did so. Unfortunately, the top two films made up 72% of the overall box office, and just one other film even grossed above $5 million (compare this to Jan 10-12, 2020 when the entire top ten was above $5 million). As well as some of the inpidual films are performing, the box office blues will continue until the overall slate picks up.

After the 33% drop in its fourth weekend, The Way of Water’s cume is now $517 million domestic and $1.708 billion worldwide, making it the seventh-biggest global grosser of all time. The domestic total puts it ahead of Top Gun: Maverick’s $467 million cume at the same point in its release, though TWOW’s holiday season release gives it a different trajectory. This weekend, however, improves TWOW’s odds of holding its lead. Maverick’s fourth weekend was a hair under TWOW’s at $44.7 million, and assuming the actuals hold, then TWOW topped it to have the second-biggest fourth weekend of all time after the first Avatar ($50.3 million, though it’s cume was smaller with $431 million after its fourth weekend). Maverick went on to gross another $252 million from there, and if TWOW manages to play on par with Maverick from this point on, that would give it a finish of $769 million and make it the fourth-highest domestic grosser ever (ahead of Avatar’s $750 million original release, though behind its $785 million cume which includes re-releases). A more “pessimistic” possible outcome would be to play like Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, which had a $42.4 million fourth weekend and went on to gross another $124 million. Adding that to Avatar 2’s current cume would get it to $641 million and make it the tenth-highest film of all time. Not that the range of possible domestic outcomes matters hugely for the film, which will soon cross the $2 billion global threshold and make its way into the top five all-time highest grossers (Avengers: Infinity War currently occupies fifth place with $2.048 billion).

For the first time, Avatar: The Way of Water isn’t alone in celebrating strong box office returns. M3gan’s killer $30.2 million debut is ahead of the openings of 2022’s two big horror hits Smile ($22.6 million opening, $106 million domestic cume) and The Black Phone ($23.6 million opening, $90.1 million domestic cume). For a non-sequel, it’s the best horror opening since before the pandemic.

Get the rest of the story at Box Offoice Mojo.