Topline
Avatar: The Way Of Water led the domestic weekend box office charts for the fourth consecutive time with $45 million in earnings between Friday and Sunday, according to Deadline and the Hollywood Reporter, as the movie’s worldwide revenue surpasses $1.7 billion and inches towards director James Cameron’s $2 billion target—making it one of the most lucrative films of all time.
Commuters walk past a large commercial advertisement banner promoting the movie Avatar: The Way of … [+]
Key Facts
Disney’s Avatar: The Way Of Water—Cameron’s sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time—has earned a total of $526.8 million domestically along with $1.19 billion in international earnings, making it the seventh highest-grossing film of all time.
The Avatar sequel crossed the $1.5 billion worldwide earnings mark on Thursday, vaulting ahead of Top Gun: Maverick to become the highest-grossing film released in 2022 (the Top Gun sequel has earned $1.48 billion worldwide).
The Way Of Water vaulted ahead of Jurassic World and Disney’s 2019 Lion King remake —which drop to the eighth and ninth spots respectively with total global earnings of more than $1.6 billion each—this weekend, but it still trails Spider-Man: No Way Home (which grossed $1.9 billion).
After slightly leading The Way Of Water on Friday, Universal’s horror film M3GAN came in second at the U.S. box office this weekend, raking in $30.2 million.
Big Number
$2.92 billion. That is the total worldwide box office earnings for the original Avatar, which was released in 2009, making it the highest-grossing film of all time.
Key Background
After a slower-than-expected opening last month, Avatar: The Way Of Water has managed to maintain strong momentum at the box office, with strong performances during its second, third and now fourth weeks. In an interview on Friday, Cameron said he expected the film to reach $2 billion in global box office earnings “in the next few days” and cross its “breakeven” point. The Avatar sequel is one of the most expensive films ever made, with a budget estimated at $350 million or more, and Cameron had said it would need to become one of the highest-grossing films of all time to simply break even. The Way Of Water’s steep budget, however, also includes the cost of filming a third Avatar movie and developing the scripts for a fourth and fifth film which could make the latter films in the series more profitable.
Tangent
M3GAN’s strong box office performance in its opening weekend comes after it received 94% positive reviews from critics on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes along with a 79% audience score. Deadline noted that M3GAN’s showing is even more impressive considering it was built on ticket sales from cheaper 2D screenings as most Imax and premium format screens are still running the Avatar sequel.
Further Reading
Box Office: ‘Avatar 2’ Crosses $1.7B Globally, ‘M3GAN’ Scares Up $30M Opening (The Hollywood Reporter)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2023/01/08/weekend-box-office-avatar-sequel-now-7th-highest-grossing-film-ever-with-17-billion-in-worldwide-earnings/