James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, which is expected to make between $130 million and $150 million domestically, had the greatest opening day of all time on Friday with a great $53 million.
Box office analysts emphasize that the epidemic era has made modeling more challenging. Even ardent detractors agree that Avatar 2 will have extraordinarily strong legs, even if the first weekend takes in $130 million.
The movie made $127.1 million overseas in its first three days, bringing its early worldwide total to $180.1 million.
Tracking indicated that The Way of Water‘s opening weekend will bring in $150 to $175 million domestically and $450 million to $550 million internationally. The movie is getting a highly sought-after day-and-date release abroad in China, despite a significant COVID-19 outbreak having a significant influence on that nation’s box office.
Regardless, The Way of Water‘s debut is far outpacing the $77 million domestic opening of the original Avatar in December 2009. With almost $2.92 billion in ticket sales, the ground-breaking movie went on to become the highest-grossing movie of all time.
The Tom Cruise film Top: Gun Maverick, which debuted at $126.7 million domestically but went on to gross a whopping $1.49 billion globally, will start in the same range as Avatar 2 if early predictions are accurate.
In addition to praising the film’s exit ratings and A CinemaScore (2009’s Avatar also had an A), Disney, the company that owns the movie’s 20th Century Studios, emphasizes that the sequel’s success will depend more on its long-term playability than a significant opening weekend. Additionally, according to distribution sources, rather than being front-loaded, advance ticket purchases are dispersed across the weekend and into Christmas week.
Producing Avatar: The Way of Water cost between $350 million and $400 million (sources say it is on the higher end). Cameron stated that for the sequel to be regarded as successful, it would need to make somewhere around $2 billion.
