Director James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water is eyeing the $600 million mark at the domestic box office as it looks to top the weekend chart for the sixth time in a row. The science-fiction sequel is expected to gross between $17 million and $20 million this weekend, setting itself up for the seventh-biggest sixth weekend in history.
The Way of Water made $4.6 million on Friday, taking its running domestic total to $582.9 million. If it meets the higher end of projections, it will hit $598 million by Sunday. A marginal over-performance will push it past $600 million in this weekend alone. Globally, the film has made over $1.95 billion, and will pass the $2 billion mark in the next few days, becoming the first film since Avengers: Endgame to do so. It is currently the sixth-biggest movie all time worldwide.
This is a tremendous result for the film, which was released 13 years after the first Avatar broke box office records on its way to $700 million stateside and $2.97 billion globally. The first Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie in history at the worldwide box office, and while The Way of Water isn’t expected to match its performance, it has still been able to hit the high standards for success that Cameron had set up prior to release. The filmmaker had said that because of its high production budget and subsequent marketing spend, The Way of Water would have to earn in the vicinity of $2 billion to break even, and to justify investment on more sequels. As things stand, it looks like we’ll get another Avatar movie in December 2024.
At number two was Sony’s newcomer Missing, a standalone sequel to the hit 2018 computer screen film Searching. The film made $3.4 million from over 3,000 theaters on its first Friday, including the $760,000 that it made in Thursday previews. Missing is expected to finish the weekend with around $8.5 million, which would be a decent-enough result for it, considering its lean $7 million budget. Searching was an unexpected success, grossing $75 million globally against a reported budget of less than $1 million.
Universal’s release of Dreamworks’ Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is looking to claim the third spot with a $2.7 million fifth Friday. The sequel to 2011’s Puss in Boots, which itself was a spinoff to the hit Shrek series, is eyeing a $12.4 million weekend, off just 14% from the last weekend. The film has now made over $117 million stateside, as it approaches the $300 million mark globally. The first Puss in Boots finished with $555 million worldwide.
Universal also took the fourth spot, with the science-fiction thriller M3GAN, which is expected to gross $9.1 million in its third weekend. The well-received film made $2.6 million this Friday, pushing its running domestic total to over $65 million against a reported budget of $12 million. This marks yet another win for hitmaker Jason Blum and his Blumhouse banner. Sony’s surprisingly successful Tom Hanks-starrer A Man Called Otto — not so much a remake of A Man Called Ove but another adaptation of the bestselling Swedish novel — continued to pull older audiences in its second weekend, drawing $2.6 million this Friday, for a projected sophomore weekend of $9 million. By Sunday, the feel-good drama will have passed $35 million domestically, marking the second theatrical win in a row for Hanks, after last year’s Elvis.
Elsewhere, the week’s second wide release — Crunchyroll’s The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime The Movie: Scarlet Bond — made nearly $700,000 on its first Friday, for a projected weekend tally of $1.4 million. That’s significantly lower than the last few Crunchyroll specialty releases, all of which managed to deliver double-digit debuts.
The Way of Water will likely surrender the top spot for the first time since its release next weekend, when director M. Night Shyamalan’s latest chiller, Knock At the Cabin, arrives in theaters. Check out Collider's interview with The Way of Water stars, Jack Champion & Trinity Bliss, below: