The long-awaited fantasy epic Avatar: The Way of Water has received an increase in its projected opening weekend box office haul. The sequel to James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar releases on December 16, with a reported budget of at least $350 million. It will be the second a series that has plans for at least three more installments should Avatar: The Way of Water prove to be profitable at the box office. It has much to live up to; its predecessor is currently the highest-grossing film of all time, and Cameron preceded that in 1997 with Titanic, which at the time was also the highest-grossing film of all time.
Avatar: The Way of Water will reportedly have to become one of the highest-grossing films ever if it is to break even on its monumental budget. However, The Wrap has projected that the film is looking at raking in a minimum of $150 million in its opening weekend (up from the previous projection of $135 million). Internationally, there’s no telling how much the film could make in its opening weekend, with China being a key market in its release. To recoup its whole budget, the film would need to be looking at an overall gross of at least $2 billion, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since before the coronavirus pandemic, but was nearly surpassed with Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s $1.9 billion gross.
Can Avatar 2 Be A Box Office Success Like The Original?
A lot has changed since the release of Avatar 13 years ago. The landscape of film has changed drastically, with the advent of streaming and the pandemic both having extreme effects on the industry. This has seen the box office become dominated by superhero films in recent years, with Marvel and DC films alike normalizing $1 billion hauls. However, franchises such as Fast & Furious and Star Wars have also been able to consistently deliver massive financial successes. Despite this, Avatar remains the top grossing film of all time (and Titanic third), which is testament to Cameron’s prowess as a blockbuster director, and the unprecedented use of CGI and 3D which had audiences enthralled.
The huge success of this year’s Top Gun: Maverick, which has shot up to become the 11th highest-grossing film ever, is proof that audiences still have a hefty appetite for blockbuster sequels, even if they aren’t part of a cinematic universe or an existing pantheon of projects. The fact that Avatar: The Way of Water is riding on the back of the most financially successful film ever made surely points towards it being a phenomenal success at the box office. There’s no question that it’s one of the most anticipated films of recent years, and Cameron’s reputation precedes him.
Time will tell whether Avatar: The Way of Water will be able to garner the same kind of success as its predecessor, especially in a post-pandemic era. Though the sequel is set to largely outperform Avatar initially, a large part of the first film’s success was its incredible longevity and reliance on rewatches. Cameron remains confident Avatar: The Way of Water will have rewatch value of a similar potency, so the question will lie on how producers choose to define success. The sequel seems very likely to break the $1 billion barrier, and any film would mark this as an overwhelming success, but this gargantuan production may require a larger haul than that to be able to label itself as a financial success. It would no doubt have to break records during its release, but it has all the building blocks necessary to do so.
Source: The Wrap