Avatar: The Way of Water raked in $435 million on its opening weekend

In the United States alone, Avatar: The Way of Water earned $134 million in its first three days. It almost doubled Avatar's opening weekend of $77 million. It is the highest weekend debut for an environmentalist film.

The Avatar sequel kicked things off with a $17 million opening night in US theaters. It did less than Black Panther: Wakanda Forever's $28 million opening night.

However, the earnings in the US are lower than previous estimates. Experts estimated that Avatar 2 would earn anywhere from $150 to $180 million in US territories in its debut. But, for what it's worth, Avatar: The Way of Water did well outside the United States. It earned $300.5 million internationally. The strong opening was boosted by the film being shown in China, one of the biggest movie markets in the world.

Avatar: The Way of Water earned a total of $434.5 million on its opening weekend. This represents over 20% of its target revenue before the movie breaks even. The movie had the 11th biggest global opening of all time.

Avatar: The Way of Water also had the third-highest opening weekend in the pandemic era. The two movies that beat out Avatar 2 were Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

The Avatar sequel was a technical masterpiece as director James Cameron used brand-new technology to produce stunning visuals. The challenge was using the motion capture system in underwater scenes. This is also one of the reasons why the film was so expensive to make.

"It's never been done before and it's very tricky because our motion capture system, like most motion capture systems, is what they call optical base, meaning that it uses markers that are photographed with hundreds of cameras." Cameron explains. "The problem with water is not the underwater part, but the interface between the air and the water, which forms a moving mirror. That moving mirror reflects all the dots and markers, and it creates thousands of false targets, so we've had to figure out how to get around that problem, which we did. It's taken us about a year and a half now to work out how we're going to do it."

All the expense was well worth it as the movie was phenomenal, especially when watched on IMax. It is safe to say that Cameron spared no expense in producing Avatar: The Way of Water.

Now, we will just have to wait for the box office numbers to see how the movie stacks up against the 2009 original. The future of the franchise is also hinged on Avatar 2 making money at the box office. Three more films are planned for the series but that depends on the current movie's earnings.