In Other News: As tornadoes hit, survivors hid in tubs, shipping container; Fastest Corvette ever is all-wheel-drive gas-electric hybrid

Published 12:00 am Wednesday, January 18, 2023

‘Avatar 2,’ ‘M3GAN’ hold onto top spots at the box office

New movies like “Plane” and “House Party” were no match for “Avatar: The Way of Water” and the killer doll horror “M3GAN” at the box office this weekend. The two holdovers topped the charts again according to studio estimates Sunday. In first place for the fifth weekend in a row was James Cameron’s “Avatar” sequel, which added an estimated $31.1 million through Sunday. That total will likely balloon to $38.5 million by the end of Monday’s Martin Luther King holiday. As of Sunday, the film’s domestic total now rests at $562.9 million (the 13th biggest of all time) and its global total is $1.89 billion. “Avatar 2” needs to pass $1.92 billion to trump “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” which is currently the sixth highest grossing film of all time globally. “There were such huge expectations and a lot of naysayers that opening weekend,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “But ‘Avatar,’ for a James Cameron movie, is moving at lightning speed up the domestic and global box office chart. I think he always knew this would be a $2 billion movie.”

As tornadoes hit, survivors hid in tubs, shipping containerAn Alabama mechanic took refuge in a shipping container as a tornado decimated his shop and killed two neighbors. A woman hid in a bathtub with her 2-year-old son, telling her mother by phone: “If the house is messed up I’ll be in the tub area.” The harrowing stories of survivors of Thursday’s storm are emerging as residents comb through the wreckage wrought by tornadoes and blistering winds that killed at least nine people in Alabama and Georgia. Survivors described chaotic scenes unfolding as the storm spun toward them, with people rushing into shelters and sheds as the winds bore down.

Fastest Corvette ever is all-wheel-drive gas-electric hybridThe fastest Corvette ever made comes out later this year, and it’s not powered soley by a howling V8. The E-Ray is a gas-electric hybrid, the first all-wheel-drive version of the storied sports car with the front wheels running on an electric motor the traditional 6.2-liter V8 powering the back. Aimed at affluent buyers who want new technology in the top-line Chevrolet sports car, the $104,000 E-Ray jerks your head back as it goes from zero to 60 mph in 2.5 seconds. General Motors says it can cover a quarter mile in 10.5 seconds. Yet engineers say the 655-horsepower system is civil enough for the daily commute.