This past weekend, the Avatar sequel closed out its earnings tally at $955.2m worldwide, and with practically a full week of 2022 left, the film is expected to easily barge into billionaire territory. However, just because that figure sounds impressive it doesn’t mean The Way of Water has turned a profit just yet, as before its release Cameron was quoted saying his movies would have to be “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” just to break even.
According to Deadline’s reports, all that revenue can be broken down between $293.2m coming from domestic earnings and the remaining $661.9m from the rest of the world, with the added perk that The Way of Water was released in China. These numbers would already make Avatar 2 the third highest-grossing movie of 2022, only behind the aforementioned Top Gun: Maverick ($1,488b) and Jurassic World: Dominion ($1,003b), and the fourth overall dating back to 2020 with Spider-Man: No Way Home being the other billion-dollar blockbuster after the pandemic.
The Way of Water was expected to achieve and surpass this milestone by Tuesday, and even considering Top Gun had an extended theatrical window and brief rerelease as opposed to practically every other contemporary movie, 2023 could see Avatar beat Maverick. Like the first Avatar film, The Way of Water has marveled most people who have seen it, thanks to Cameron’s technical prowess to depict an even more hyperrealistic version of Pandora this time around.
Of course, out of the big four billion-dollar blockbusters named above, only The Way of Water and Jurassic World came out in China, with the country contributing at least $150m in revenue to the latter, and possibly even more for Avatar given the Chinese’s fondness for the franchise. No Way Home was kept out of China’s mainland as part of censors’ seemingly anti-Marvel stance since Avengers: Endgame, whereas Top Gun’s brand of militarism not only saw the film banned, Maverick even got a canceled Chinese copycat.
While Avatar: The Way of Water’s final production budget is still a mystery, the ballpark estimate used by media outlets is in the $350-460m, which could turn the sequel into one of the most expensive movies ever. Considering the norm in Hollywood is marketing expenses amount to twice that amount, it’s unclear whether Cameron spoke out of context or if the movie has more hidden costs yet to be disclosed.
Avatar: The Way of Water is currently available in theaters.
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