According to current local projections, the James Cameron mega-sequel will end its run in China with a little bit more than $220 million.
Even in the face of a disastrous wave of COVID-19 infection, James Cameron‘s Avatar: The Way of Water has continued to make significant increases at China’s box office. Data from Artisan Gateway show that the Disney blockbuster made $16.5 million more on its fourth weekend, bringing its total to $189.4 million.
Avatar 2 will max out at $222 million, according to popular Chinese ticketing service Maoyan, following some wild swings in early predictions.
The second-highest-grossing Hollywood production of the epidemic period is Jurassic World: Dominion from Universal, which brought in $157.6 million. This is an increase over the $202 million original Avatar movie made in China back in 2009.
But when you consider that China now has more than ten times as many movie theaters as it did in 2009 and that Avatar 2 has been extremely well received by Chinese moviegoers who have seen it (its social scores on Maoyan and Tiapiaopiao have held at a high 9.1/10), the ongoing Covid outbreak’s toll on the sequel’s earnings becomes glaringly obvious.
Avatar 2 will have one more uninterrupted weekend at the Chinese cinema before a flood of domestic tentpoles begins screening for the Lunar New Year vacation, which begins on January 22. The Wandering Earth 2 by Frank Guo, the follow-up to China’s first sci-fi hit that made $700 million in 2019, is unquestionably the most anticipated of them all. Among the other contenders is the World War II spy thriller Hidden Blade from Bona Film Group, starring Tony Leung and Wang Yibo; the sports drama Ping-Pong of China, which was directed and starred Deng Chao; Full River Red, a historical mystery from renowned director Zhang Yimou; and the most recent entry in the enduring Bonnie Bears family animation franchise.
