2023 is already soaring, thanks to a strong statement at the box office.
Avatar: The Way of Water continues to defy gravity and has now earned $1.708 billion globally at the box office. With numbers and legs like this (33% drop for its fourth weekend), reaching $2.5 billion might be its most significant (and safest) challenge to achieve once it wraps up its time in theaters. It’s not out of the question to also be looking at around $700 million domestically (on par with Black Panther and Top Gun: Maverick) since it doesn’t have much in its way for the remainder of January. Right now, it’s the seventh-highest-grossing film of all time, and it’ll overtake Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s grand total in the coming days. $2 billion will occur James Cameron; people still vastly enjoy the sensation and product.
For M3GAN, it made one hell of an impact at the box office this weekend. It shattered expectations with a $30.2 million debut, earned a ‘B’ from CinemaScore, and earned strong word-of-mouth from critics. Perhaps that PG-13 rating made a sizeable difference, James Wan. With the Blumhouse branding, it should be reaching $100 million domestically quite comfortably and will be legging out nicely for the next few weeks alongside the Avatar branding. A revamp of the Chucky/Annabelle series with ingenious touches of modern-day technology amplified its premise and creepy atmosphere. With this run, we can expect a worldwide gross of around $200 million unless it decides to shatter that further. (Check or review here.)
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish took third place this weekend with $13.1 million (22% drop). The spinoff series’ sequel has outperformed also thanks to a strong reception and the holidays giving it great legs for families to band together to watch their favorite cat steal the show. It should be over $200 million worldwide by tomorrow, meaning the long-year wait proved to be a worthwhile success. At this point, Antonio Banderas might need a little more juice to get Shrek 5 rolling.
A Man Called Otto had a more modest debut with $4.2 million. It performs better than other recent dramas like The Whale and The Fabelmans and might have some eyes on it for the awards season. And rounding out the top five is Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, with $3.4 million in its ninth weekend of release. The film is on track to best $450 million domestically before Friday rolls around, and it is currently at $826 million worldwide. With the recent Disney+ announcement, it should end its run at around $850-870 million worldwide. I guess the $1 billion benchmark is something we can’t always press onto anticipated Marvel sequels since its predecessor overperformed and was the substantial appetizer for Avengers: Infinity War. In any case, the lengthy, somber sequel is a success, and Black Panther 3 will rise (not to quote a Christopher Nolan trilogy capper) once Ryan Coogler and Kevin Feige are ready to present.
Next weekend sees the release of Plane and House Party.
