In reflection, 2022 was not exactly a superlative year at the box office. James Cameron's Avatar: The Way Of Water helped end the 12-month stretch on a positive note, but there was a lot of disappointment to behold. One key exception to this was new horror movies – particularly original horror movies – and we're thankfully seeing that trend already continue in 2023.
Avatar: The Way Of Water may have technically won the box office in this Friday-to-Sunday stretch, but the real story is the numbers put up by Gerard Johnstone's M3GAN – which debuted in second place, but earned nearly double what prognosticators estimated going into its opening weekend. Check out the full Top 10 below and join me after for analysis.
| TITLE | WEEKEND GROSS | DOMESTIC GROSS | LW | THTRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Avatar: The Way Of Water | $45,000,000 | $516,789,379 | 1 | 4,340 |
| 2. M3GAN* | $30,200,000 | $30,200,000 | Row 1 - Cell 3 | 3,509 |
| 3. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish | $13,120,000 | $87,706,000 | 2 | 3,919 |
| 4. A Man Called Otto | $4,200,000 | $4,285,000 | 18 | 637 |
| 5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever | $3,398,000 | $445,437,616 | 3 | 2,255 |
| 6. Whitney Houston I Wanna Dance With Somebody | $2,400,000 | $19,699,000 | 4 | 3,184 |
| 7. The Whale | $1,541,201 | $8,582,731 | 7 | 835 |
| 8. Babylon | $1,430,000 | $13,524,000 | 5 | 2,381 |
| 9. Violent Night | $740,000 | $49,420,735 | 6 | 1,981 |
| 10. The Menu | $713,000 | $37,655,950 | 8 | 800 |
M3GAN Opened In Second Place, But It Nearly Doubled Estimates Going Into The Weekend
Last week, there were reported estimates from trades suggesting that M3GAN's opening weekend ticket sales would land in the $17-20 million range, but as reported by The Numbers this morning, the James Wan/Jason Blum-produced hit has done far better than that. In fact, it looks like the movie may have nearly doubled the low end of that estimate, as early figures show that the film made $30.2 million in its first three days.
Altogether it's not surprising. M3GAN has been building up hype ever since the debut of its first trailer last October, which saw the clip of the titular android dancing almost instantly become a viral meme. Of course, internet buzz doesn't always translate to box office numbers (David R. Ellis' Snakes On A Plane being the classic example), but the film got a nice big boost this past week when reviews arrived online. Critics let it be known that the best of the movie wasn't limited to what's been featured in the marketing, and as of this article's publication there is a 93 percent score featured on Rotten Tomatoes.
Part of the reason why M3GAN's success is particularly impressive stems from its release date. The first weekend in January isn't typically seen as a big target for studios, as potential audiences are getting back into the swing of normal life after the holidays and movie-going isn't always made a priority. Obviously it helps if a title has the appearance of a being "must-see," and that's what we've seen this week. It's also worth noting, however, that we've actually seen a nice pattern develop of horror titles doing well in the first month of the year.
In 2022, it was Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet's Scream that made a nice impression upon its release – making about the same amount of money as M3GAN did in its first three days of release. Other recent January success stories include Leigh Whannell's Insidious: The Last Key, which came out in 2018, and M. Night Shyamalan's Glass and Split, which came out in 2019 and 2017 respectively. Both James Wan and James Blum are producers behind the Insidious franchise, and Blum collaborated with Shyamalan on those two Unbreakable follow-ups.
As alluded to, M3GAN marks the latest box office win for the horror genre after a 2022 that was full of them. The Halloween season did great things for films like Parker Finn's Smile, Zach Cregger's Barbarian, and Damien Leone's Terrifier 2, but big hits from earlier in the year included the aforementioned Scream, Jordan Peele's Nope (which performed brilliantly in July), and Scott Derrickson's The Black Phone (which did well facing off against Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis in late June).
Hopefully we end up not only getting to see a lot more box office wins like this in 2023, but also a reaction from film studios that will see them filling theaters with amazing, original horror movies for years to come.
Avatar: The Way Of Water Crosses $500 Million Domestically
M3GAN may be the buzziest movie of the new year, but that energy wasn't quite enough to help it topple Avatar: The Way Of Water, which has won the box office for the fourth weekend in a row. Compared to its last Friday-to-Sunday performance, the numbers are only down 33 percent, as the blockbuster added another $45 million to its domestic total.
To date, Avatar: The Way Of Water has made $516.8 million during its theatrical run in the United States and Canada, which is enough to make it the second biggest hit of 2022 behind Top Gun: Maverick (the Tom Cruise film made $718.8 million before the end of its time on the big screen). Despite getting off to a slower start than the comic book movie offerings from the past year, Avatar 2 has surpassed the totals put up by Ryan Coogler's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Sam Raimi's Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, Taika Waititi's Thor: Love And Thunder, Matt Reeves' The Batman, and Jaume Collet-Serra's Black Adam.
Globally, the feature continues to pad its record as the biggest theatrical release of 2022. It was last week that the film stole that crown from Top Gun: Maverick, and to date the James Cameron movie has made $1.7 billion worldwide.
In Third Place, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish Is Quietly Putting Up Solid Box Office Numbers
With M3GAN being the only new wide release from this past weekend and Marc Forster's A Man Called Otto and Darren Aronfsky's The Whale only making modest splashes expanding into more locations nationwide, the third biggest story at the box office this weekend is arguably the sustained success of Joel Crawford's Puss In Boots: The Last Wish.
The film didn't make much of an impression when it premiered during the depressing Christmas box office weekend, but I will point out that it made more money this weekend – its third in release – than it did in its first. It only made $12.4 million when it first opened, but it made $16.8 million last week, and its numbers from the past three days represent a weekend-to-weekend drop of only 22 percent. To date, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish has made $87.7 million domestically and $197.4 million globally.
How will the box office rankings change up next week with the release of Calmatic's House Party remake and Jean-François Richet's Plane starring Gerard Butler? Head back here to CinemaBlend next Sunday to find out, and check out our 2023 Movie Release Calendar to discover all of the films scheduled to be released in the year ahead.
