Sanctum made a profit and it shouldn't have, shows the power of Jim's name alone (30m budget, 108.6m ww). It was seriously poor quality and shouldn't have made any money.
Now with Alita we will have an A to A+ cinemascore, a Jim script, Jim supervision, Jim's VFX crew (they were practicing for Avatar 2 btw) and Dua Lipa's The Swan. Expect a high quality film which will get a bunch of buzz, they're releasing the film internationally before they release it in America so that's another reason why box office pro's tracking will be far out.
It's funny some people see "From the producers of Titanic and Avatar" and think Jim directed it.