Weekend projections: Avatar nets another $45 million, M3GAN tops $30 million on debut

January 8, 2023

Avatar: The Way of Water

2023 is off to a flying start at the box office, with Avatar: The Way of Water continuing to defy gravity, and M3GAN posting the best opening for a sci-fi horror movie in years. With A Man Called Otto also coming in well ahead of expectations, and all other films in the top 10 outperforming (bar the seasonal sensation Violent Night), over $100 million will be spent on movie tickets in North America this weekend.

Here’s how the domestic numbers looked as of Sunday morning (click on the image for the full chart of films reporting so far)…



The Way of Water isn’t holding quite as strongly as the original Avatar, but its decline to $45 million this weekend is only 33% less than it made over the 3-day portion of the New Year’s holiday. It’ll end the weekend with close to $517 million domestically and $1.191 billion internationally, for a global total of $1.708 billion. That moves it up to 7th on the all-time global list, and it should move past Spider-Man: No Way Home in the next few days to become the biggest post-pandemic global hit.

James Cameron reckoned Way of Water needed around $2 billion to be profitable. It looks as though it’ll hit that target with ease. Can it top $3 billion to become the top-grossing film of all time? That’s something I’ll be looking at more in the days to come.

For M3GAN, a second-place finish with $30.2 million is an excellent result. This is a rare horror movie that’s getting great reviews and a strong audience response (it currently has a 93% critic score and 79% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, for example). The combination of James Wan and Blumhouse on its credits will also have helped draw in opening-weekend audiences. It could have enough positive word of mouth to put in a good run, with $100 million not out of the question at this point.

A Man Called Otto has much more modest goals, and a $4.2-million wide debut from 637 theaters isn’t all that much to get excited about. But it is much better than most recent dramas have performed on their wide expansions. By comparison The Whale earned $1.0 million from 603 theaters when it expanded, and The Fabelmans picked up $2.3 million from 638 locations on its nationwide rollout. Critics aren’t wowed by Otto, but audiences currently rate it at 97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, so it could have a nice run going into Awards Season.

- Studio weekend projections
- All-time biggest weekends
- All-time top-grossing movies in North America
- All-time top-grossing movies worldwide
- Want to support us? Please help with a monthly donation.

Bruce Nash,

Filed under: James Cameron, James Wan