The doll on everyone’s lips this week is M3GAN, as the killer doll made a killing at the box office. But James Cameron is not letting the top spot slip away.
Universal/Blumhouse/Atomic Monster’s M3GAN skipped out of the weekend with $30.2 million after a Saturday night that brought in $11.4 million. This followed an impressive preview screening Thursday and a solid Friday that the film already made back its $12 million budget.
Blumhouse is known for these infamous lower-budgeted horrors with a heavy marketing campaign. You couldn’t avoid the M3GAN marketing as the killer doll was everywhere. From a viral first trailer to appearing at red-carpet events, you can tell the studios behind this movie wanted M3GAN to be a pop culture force.
The film is currently sitting at around 94% on Rotten Tomatoes and made a splash in its demos. Deadline notes that M3GAN saw “53% females, overall audience of 56% over 25, and 62% between 18-34.” These numbers could show the power of a PG-13 horror film that’s not afraid to get a bit campy.
“M3GAN had an incredible debut this weekend, and rightly so; certainly not surprising that a collaboration between Blumhouse and James Wan’s Atomic Monster would produce such a fun, creepy, thrilling story that audiences are piling into theatres to see. M3GAN over-performed industry expectations and normal grossing patterns all weekend, demonstrating great word of mouth as reenforced by its tremendous critical and audience reaction scores and no doubt pointing to a great run at the domestic box office ahead,” says Universal’s Domestic Distribution Boss Jim Orr.
But the number one movie is still Avatar: The Way of Water, which Disney made sure it was still bringing in the big bucks. As part of a four-week pact to keep all the premium screens (IMAX, Dolby, etc.), we saw the James Cameron sequel bring in an impressive $45 million. For those who love ridiculous box office stats, Avatar: The Way of Water saw the second-best 4th weekend for a film after the original 2009 film, which saw an outlandish $50.3 million in week four.
In its short run, Avatar: The Way of Water is already $1.7 billion globally, the seventh highest of all time. The film is just around $200 million from overtaking Spider-Man: No Way Home at $1.9 billion; both are pandemic-era releases that brought in impressive numbers. At this pace, the Avatar sequel could make $2 billion.
This weekend at the box office saw two very different films show off the power of their studio’s backing. Disney made sure Avatar: The Way of Water would be a global force, and Universal gave M3GAN every chance to become a pop culture hit. Both movies are playing in cinemas worldwide.
