Avatar, Puss In Boots, And M3GAN Continue Their Reign Atop The Box Office Once Again

It was another deceptively good weekend at the box office, despite the fact that the same three releases that have been ruling the charts for weeks now continued their run atop the charts. The charge was led, once again, for a sixth weekend in a row, by James Cameron's "Avatar: The Way of Water." The film has now officially topped the $2 billion mark, making it just the sixth movie in history to do so — three of which were directed by Cameron! "Avatar" ($2.92 billion) and "Titanic" ($2.19 billion) also crossed the exceptionally rare milestone. Meanwhile, "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" and "M3GAN" continued to rake it in, while "Missing" had an encouraging debut.

According to Box Office Mojo, "The Way of Water" added another $20 million in its sixth weekend, giving it the top spot once again. It has now earned $2.024 billion globally, including $598 million domestic and $1.426 billion internationally. Next up, it will likely overtake "Avengers: Infinity War" ($2.052 billion) and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" ($2.071 billion) to give Cameron three of the top four biggest movies ever. Never, ever (ever!) doubt James Cameron.

The number two spot was, arguably, more interesting this past weekend though as "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" managed to move back up the charts in its fifth week. The animated sequel took in $11.5 million, with "M3GAN" ($9.8 million) falling to number three. What's remarkable here is that, with no other family-friendly competition out there, "Puss in Boots" has had a clear runway to keep chugging right along, despite being available on VOD. It will cross $300 million worldwide any day now. So its $90 million budget will be firmly justified.

Nobody is crying for "M3GAN" though, as the Blumhouse horror hit, in its third weekend, continued to bring out horror fans in droves. It dropped a reasonable 46.5% to bring its domestic total to $73.2 million, all against a mere $12 million budget. Couple that with a growing $51.3 million overseas and this killer doll has taken in $124.6 million so far. So yeah, that's why the sequel, "M3GAN 2.0," is already on the fast track at Universal. Original horror continues to do its thing! Case in point, word-of-mouth hit "Skinamarink" added $420,000, bringing it close to $1.5 million. Or, to put it another way, 100 times its $15,000 budget.

Even though the top three were dominated by weeks-old releases, the weekend's big newcomer, Sony's thriller "Missing" (read our review here), still did quite well for itself. The sequel of sorts to the ultra-low-budget 2018 film "Searching" earned $9.3 million, taking the number four spot. The great news here is that the film only cost $7 million to produce so, even with marketing, this one figures to do well for Sony as it rolls out internationally and churns along domestically in the coming weeks.

Further encouraging for 2023's prospect was "A Man Called Otto," with the Tom Hanks flick dropping less than 30% to round out the top five with $9 million. It has, thus far, earned $55.3 million worldwide and could/should be able to leg out to $100 million at this rate. Rather sadly, on the other end, Oscar hopeful "The Son," starring Hugh Jackman, tanked in its debut. It opened in 554 theaters, taking in a mere $239,855. Its per-screen average was a miserable $432. Check out the full list of the top 10 movies at the box office this past weekend below.

Top 10 movies at the box office, January 20-22, 2023:

1. "Avatar: The Way of Water: – $20 million

2. "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" – $11.5 million

3. "M3GAN" – $9.8 million

4. "Missing" – $9.3 million

5. "A Man Called Otto" – $9 million

6. "Plane" – $5.25 million

7. "House Party" – $1.77 million

8. "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime the Movie: Scarlet Bond" – $1.45 million

9. "The Whale" – $1.28 million

10. "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" – $1.25 million