Believe it or not, Avatar: The Way of Water has already made over $1.4 billion at the global box office. What’s even more unbelievable is that this figure still isn’t enough for the film to be considered profitable for the Mouse House. The good news is Avatar 2 is much closer to breaking even and turning a profit than expected.
James Cameron previously revealed that Avatar 2 needs to gross at least $2 billion to break even but Variety notes that the actual figure is much closer. It reports that Disney needs the Avatar sequel to gross $1.5 billion, which is $500 million less than what Cameron previously claimed and just a hundred million more dollars away from the film’s current box office take.
It’s unclear why Cameron said $2 billion but he could very well have been considering other factors. Even if Avatar 2 only needed to gross $1.5 billion to be a financial success, Disney likely needed a much larger sum to okay the rest of the films in the pipeline. Keep in mind that there are at least three more sequels planned following Avatar 2 and most of them are expected to be equally expensive.
With that said, the current and still-ongoing success of Avatar 2 just proved that Cameron’s risky plans for the franchise has paid off and this might encourage him to return for the final two films.
If you look at the calendar, Avatar: The Way of Water’s next real competitor is Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which won’t premiere until February 16. Realistically, the two could co-exist in cinemas and Avatar 2’s theatrical run could extend well into March. Avatar ran a total of 34 weeks in theaters albeit most of the money that it made came during the first 14 weeks. So, technically, Avatar 2 could remain profitable until late March if not early April.
Ironically, Warner Bros. Discovery delayed Shazam! Fury of the Gods to prevent this specific scenario.
If you’re feeling tired of keeping up with the global box office numbers of Avatar: The Way of Water, feel free to circle back in two months. Most likely, we’ll have a better idea of how the sequel stacks up in the history books by then.
