Avatar: The Way of Water took its fourth weekend box office with domestic ticket sales of $45 million, but it faced a tough competitor as M3GAN debuted to a strong $30.2 million in North America.
As reported by Variety, Universal and Blumhouse Productions' terrifying doll thriller M3GAN brought in another $14.8 million internationally to help bring its global total to $45 million.
M3GAN was projected to earn around $17-$20 million in North America, but there has been a ton of positive buzz about the film that had a budget of only $12 million. It clearly beat those projections, and it even became the first movie to open to over $30 million in the first week of a new year since 2012's Devil Inside opened to $33.7 million.
In our M3GAN review, we said, "M3GAN capably proves herself more than a horror villain meme, although
the film does sometimes struggle to balance the horror and comedy."
Despite its impressive showing, M3GAN didn't have enough to dethrone the behemoth that is Avatar: The Way of Water. Its $45 million domestic weekend box office haul was only a 35% decline from last weekend, and it continues to soar up the list of the biggest movies of all time.
As it stands, Avatar: The Way of Water has earned more than $516 million in North America and $1.1 billion overseas. Its global tally sits at $1.707 billion and that's enough to earn it the honor of becoming the seventh-biggest movie in history.
According to Box Office Mojo, it passed Jurassic World's $1.671 billion worldwide lifetime gross and now sits behind Spider-Man: No Way Home's $1.916 billion. The original Avatar stands victorious on that list with a worldwide lifetime gross of $2.922 billion.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish took third place with $12.4 million, bringing its North American total to $87 million. Tom Hanks' A Man Called Otto had a limited release but still took spot #4 with $4.2 million. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever rounded out the top five with $3.3 million. Domestically, the latest MCU film has earned $445 million.
2023 is just beginning, and you can check out 60 movies we can't wait to see this year, including Ant-Man: Quantumania, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, John Wick 4, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, and more.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
source https://www.ign.com/articles/avatar-the-way-of-water-holds-off-an-impressive-debut-by-m3gan-to-take-its-fourth-weekend-box-office