Box Office Predictions: Avatar 2 set to top for a sixth week in a row

With just two new releases this week, and neither set to light the box office on fire, you can expect this weeks chart to look strikingly similar to last week’s with Avatar: The Way of Water continuing its dominant run in first place. The film currently sits at $574.4 million domestic, making it the thirteenth highest grossing domestic release of all time. With an additional $20-$25 million this weekend and with what it will make in the remainder of its theatrical run, I feel confident in saying that ultimately Avatar: The Way of Water will crack the top ten all time domestic releases, beating out The Avengers which currently sits at $623.3 million. I don’t think it has the strength to get to number nine on the list which is where Jurassic World currently lives with $653.4 million.

Of course the worldwide numbers tell a different story as Avatar 2 has quickly been moving up the charts and currently sits in the sixth spot all time with $1.928 billion as it officially overtook Spider-Man: No Way Home this week. The question is: can it get to the $2,048,359,755 mark, as that would be $1 more than Avengers: Infinity War made when it climbed into the number five spot on the worldwide leaders board. Only time will tell.

(from left) Cady (Violet McGraw), M3GAN and Gemma (Allison Williams) in M3GAN, directed by Gerard Johnstone.

The number two spot will again be dominated by the killer robotic doll M3GAN as word of mouth seems to be quite strong for this PG13 rated horror hit. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should make the time or you will be lost when the recently announced sequel M3GAN 2.0is released in 2025. Having seen the movie just last night, I can say that I definitely enjoyed it, but am very interested in seeing the original R rated cut, as you could tell a lot was cut out to make sure the teenage audience was able to buy tickets. The film should finish the weekend between $10-12 million.

Third place looks to be a toss up between Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and A Man Called Otto. Both films had solid numbers during the week with Puss in Boots finishing in second place on Monday (when most kids were out of school due to the Martin Luther King Jr holiday) while Otto took second place on Tuesday when more adults tend to head to theaters (you can’t beat the $5 cameo combo at AMC on Tuesday’s!). I think the edge goes to Puss in Boots due to the fact that more families tend to head to theaters on the weekends, but you can’t count out the success Otto is having. This one will be a dog fight between the two, but I expect them both to finish around the $10 million mark.

Fifth place is another tough one to call. Will it be the second week of the Gerard Butler action film Plane or will it be the new release pseudo-sequel/ spin off film Missing. I actually think Missing can pull of the top five victory this weekend and I am basing that solely on this: when I saw M3GAN yesterday there was a group of teenage girls sitting a few rows in front of me, when the trailer for Missing finished, I heard them say “I want to see that.” And with that scientific method of box office predicting, Missing will beat Plane this weekend!

Of course there is slightly more to it than that. Missing is a sequel-ish to the John Cho starring film Searching which was actually one of my favorite movies of 2018. The film unravels entirely through a computer screen and was one of the more original films I had ever seen. I actually thought John Cho should have been in the awards conversation for his performance in that film. Audiences seemed to agree as it would go on to make over $75 million worldwide. Missing stars Storm Reid who has been building up quite the solid resume with turns in The Invisible Man, A Wrinkle in Time and HBO’s Euphoria and the film has already garnered some fairly solid reviews as it currently sits at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes (based off of 38 reviews). Again, I do think it will be a dog fight between Missing and Plane but I think Missing can get to around $6 million while Plane will top out around $5 million.

The other new release this week is the Crunchyroll studios release of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: The Movie. This is another one of those niche releases that come out strong in their first week as the audience is eager to see these films as soon as possible. Crunchyroll studios has been on a hot streak lately with their film One Piece FIlm: Red claiming second place with $9.4 million back in November while their Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero topped the charts back in August with an over $20 million debut. Tracking on Slime isn’t as strong and should look to crack the top ten with around $1 million. Of course that number could be much higher, these anime loving crowds can be quite unpredictable!

Do you plan on catching a movie this weekend? If so, let us know in the comments section and don’t forget to check back on Saturday when we give a brief update on where this weekend’s numbers are heading.

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