The movie Avatar: The Way of Water is already on track to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time. The box office potential of the James Cameron-directed follow-up to the highest-grossing film has been questioned ever since it was first revealed, but even though the film has only been in theatres for a short while, it seems all those worries can be put to rest at this point.
Avatar: The Way of Water has “only” made $1.5 billion at the global box office so far, making it the highest-grossing movie of 2022, but it is still $1.4 billion behind the first Avatar and hasn’t cracked the list of the top 10 highest-grossing films of all time. The film is on track to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time, provided it doesn’t crash too soon. However, given the long legs Cameron’s other two top 10 films, Titanic (the third highest-grossing film of all time) and Avatar, have had, it seems unlikely that this will happen (the top highest-grossing movie of all time).
Box office performance of Avatar: The Way of Water
Avatar: The Way of Water debuted with $134 million, less than all of the top 10 films except for Avatar ($77 million) and Titanic ($28.6 million), but by Sunday, January 1, 2023, when it had been in theatres for 17 days, it had made $24.5 million, $3 million more than the next highest-grossing film, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with $21.5 million. Avatar 2 outperformed the next-highest Avatar ($8.1 million) on day 18 (January 2).
Avatar 2 made $10.5 million on day 19 (January 3), surpassing the next-highest movie, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which took in $8 million. The aforementioned graph illustrates the distinct box office performance of Avatar: The Way of Water.
Of course, this pattern might not continue. diverse projects While projections have consistently understated Avatar 2’s box office after its opening weekend, Cameron’s other top 10 movies, Avatar and Titanic beat every other movie week-to-week starting on their fourth and fifth weekends, respectively, and drove them to the top of the charts. Avatar: The Way of Water will make $30-$35 million in its fourth weekend, which will lag behind the fourth-weekend hauls of five to six other top 10 movies. This is when Avatar: The Way of Water will start to separate from the rest of the group if it continues to follow in their footsteps.
More on box office rankings
The original Avatar and Titanic both demonstrate how long legs at the box office can make up for a seemingly impossible massive opening weekend deficit, even though Avatar: The Way of Water has a lot of ground to make up compared to films with massive opening weekends like Avengers: Endgame’s $357.1 billion. Even if Avatar: The Way of Water has already proven to be a commercially successful film, only time will tell if it can propel James Cameron back to the top of the all-time box office rankings.