TOPLINE
James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water earned $18 million in the U.S. on New Year’s Eve, totaling $1.37 billion globally in the long-awaited sequel’s third week, as the movie earned $31 million more than the second-highest grossing film through Friday and Saturday.
KEY FACTS
Avatar: The Way of Water earned $24.4 million domestically Friday and $18 million Saturday, totaling $400 million at the domestic box office.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish earned $11.16 million domestically through the same two-day period, followed by Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ($3.12 million), the Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody ($2.68 million) and Babylon ($1.67 million).
The sci-fi sequel is now the 15th highest-grossing film of all time, passing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 ($1.34 billion), after adding $186 million internationally.
BIG NUMBER
$152.8 million. That’s how much The Way of the Water has earned in China—the most out of any other market outside the U.S.
SURPRISING FACT
Cameron estimates the film—which reportedly cost $400 million to produce—will need to be the “third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” in order to break even, according to an interview with GQ. This will require The Way of Water to earn roughly $2 billion—sitting somewhere between Titanic ($2.2 billion), Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens ($2.06 billion) and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.04 billion).
KEY BACKGROUND
Reviews for Cameron’s sequel have generally been positive, with a 92% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, though the site’s critics have rated the film at 77%. Other critics and audiences have rated The Way of Water 67/100 and 7.4/10, respectively, on Metacritic. The highest-grossing film released in 2022 is still Top Gun: Maverick, which has since earned $1.48 billion globally.
By Ty Roush, Forbes Staff