Just a few days after its huge holiday weekend, Avatar: The Way of Water has become the latest James Cameron movie to score over $1 billion at the box office. The mega-blockbuster, which was released on Dec. 16 in the United States, made $434 million globally in its opening weekend, with $134 million of that coming from the domestic box office. With a Christmas-weekend domestic estimate of around $64 million, new openings in territories around the world, and a sizable week-after-Christmas haul, The Way of Water has already grossed over $1.1 billion and shows no signs of slowing down.
The Way of Water’s opening weekend was a huge improvement on the relatively slow debut of the original film, which brought in only $77 million in the United States. Despite that figure, Avatar climbed to the top of the all-time box office standings thanks to 3D upcharges and an impressive ability to keep audiences coming back to Pandora week after week.
Avatar: The Way of Water may manage a similar staying power to its predecessor, despite starting out with a way bigger first-weekend haul. If it can hold onto this success, and draw enough curious viewers and return customers, then its huge debut could help it grow into a similar-sized phenomenon as the original — even if cracking its predecessor’s box office record total of approximately $2.9 billion (after a few re-releases in the 13 years since it debuted) still seems a little far off to predict. Of course, if anyone can do it it would be Cameron, who now has three movies that have gone above $1 billion at the box office — Way of the Water joins Titanic and the original Avatar in that impressive club.
Disney predicts that the Monday after Christmas, when many potential ticket-buyers still have off, will net nearly $26 million. And with adult-oriented films like Babylon struggling at the box-office, and juggernauts like Black Panther: Wakanda Forever waning in interest (the movie made around $3.5 million this weekend for a domestic total of just under $428 million), there’s not much competition facing Cameron’s movie has it swims along, bursting the bubble of skeptics who wondered if the Avatar franchise held any water.
