Avatar: The Way of Water is officially the third highest-grossing film of all time

As for taking down the only other movies that's made more money than Avatar 2, this is impossible. Avengers: Endgame and the first Avatar film have made nearly $2.8 billion and a little over $2.9 billion, respectively. To put that into context, the difference between Avatar: The Way of Water and Avengers: Endgame is close to $600 million, which is even higher than how much the film made in its opening weekend.

Barring a historic post-launch surge surpassing its historical initial three-day take, Avatar 2 likely won't be making more than $2.3 billion when it's all said and done.

After being dethroned for the first time by Knock at the Cabin, Avatar 2 met and lost to another blockbuster title in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania following its series-high haul. The next few weeks aren't going to be kinder to Avatar 2 with big-budget movies like Creed III (March 3), Shazam! Fury of the Gods (March 17), John Wick: Chapter 4 (March 24), Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (March 31), and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (March 31) all premiering next month.

At this point, Disney is better off looking at releasing Avatar: The Way of Water on Disney+ sooner rather than later. The worst-case scenario is that it will have minimal effect on the sliding subscriber count of the popular streaming platform.