The Rest of 2022 Belongs to 'Avatar'

Business has been bleak for theaters through most of 2022, but that's all going to change this weekend. Avatar: The Way of Water, the long-awaited sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time, finally opens this week, and it will be the biggest debut of 2022. It's not clear whether the long-term performance of the movie will live up to the hype and turn a profit on its astronomical budget, but at least for the final weeks of the year, it will be a rare bright spot for theater owners. Read on for details.

Via Box Office Mojo.

There’s no doubt that Avatar: The Way of Water will be massive, the question is just how massive. After the pitifully low box office last weekend, where all films grossed just $37.6 million making it the second lowest grossing weekend of the year, the sequel to the world’s highest grossing film of all time comes out after a gap of 13 years. The box office still has many hurdles ahead, but at least for the rest of the year theaters should be packed with audiences eager to return to the world of Pandora.

James Cameron’s latest sci-fi epic, which is the first of numerous planned sequels, fittingly picks up over a decade after the events of the first Avatar, with a returning cast that includes Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, and Sigourney Weaver. Among the new cast members is Kate Winslet who re-teams with Cameron 25 years after Titanic, which held the all-time box office record for 12 years before Cameron dethroned himself with Avatar. Can lightning strike for a third time for the king of the box office? The first Avatar had a $750 million domestic cume and $2.74 billion worldwide cume from its original release (re-releases put it at $785 million domestic, now the fourth-highest gross of all time, and $2.92 billion worldwide, the highest gross of all time), and it would of course be foolhardy to expect a repeat of that business. Still, there’s a good chance we’ll see the all-time top ten lists be shaken up, and the film may be 2022’s highest grosser, at least globally if not domestically (Top Gun: Maverick currently holds those crowns with $719 million domestic and $1.49 billion worldwide).

Back in 2009, Avatar opened to $77 million, hardly an opening that you’d expect to lead to all-time high box office numbers, but the film, which was a breakthrough for 3D cinema, was a true phenomenon, just like Titanic before it. The second weekend was just 1.8% below the first, and the film dropped just 9.4% in the third weekend. It may not have had a record-breaking opening (though it does actually hold the record for the highest opening for a live action film not based on any preexisting IP), but to date it is the topper when it comes to third, fourth, fifth, and sixth weekends (the subsequent weekend records are held by none other than Titanic). The multiplier was an astonishing 9.7.

However, The Way of Water performs, it is certain to follow a different, more front-loaded trajectory. The opening weekend could be the year’s biggest (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ $187 million debut is current champion), and it may even join the club of just eight films so far to open above $200 million. Still, whether it performs like a “normal” big blockbuster or another title for the record books is something we won’t know until the follow-up weekends. There’s no official word on what the budget is, but Cameron claims the film will need to be “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” to break even, which would mean a gross of above $2 billion (keep in mind no film since 2019 has gotten that high). Veracity of that statement aside, the legs will be the real story here, just as with Cameron’s earlier blockbusters. Thankfully, critics are saying the film exhibits no signs of a sophomore slump, with the 81% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes being practically on par with the first film, and many reviews are calling it another must-see big-screen experience.

Get the rest of the story at Box Office Mojo.