The Way of Water Gets Strong, $435M Opening Weekend

Throughout the year there has been a lot of discussion online about what kind of reception Avatar: The Way of Water at the box office. Bolstered by solid social media impressions and reviews, but understandably off-putting to some people for what it is three hours Running time, all eyes were on it James Camerons Long-awaited second foray into the world of Pandora and his blue dreadlocked cat people.

On its opening weekend The way of the water makes waves. Per meeting, the film has grossed $435 million worldwide at the time of writing, with the majority of that earnings coming from an international audience. Globally, it is now the second-highest opening of the year and the third-highest of the pandemic era. (First and second place go to the 2021s respectively Spider-Man: No Way Home and last May Doctor Strange 2.) Stateside is currently on track to gross $134 million, which is on the low end of box office analysts’ forecasts.

Following the film’s strong opening numbers, Cameron posted a video on Twitter thanking viewers for seeing the film “the way it was always meant to be seen.” In advance Water, He is gone out of the way to emphasize that this and its predecessor are great experiences It’s worth going to the cinema. “For me, this film has been a deeply personal journey,” said Cameron. “It’s incredibly gratifying that so many of you have seen it on the big screen.”

pages like diversity have found that Cameron’s films gain momentum over time after having soft opens. Since the film supposedly has to make $2 billion To really break even and ensure more sequels, those legs are going to be pretty important to the sequel. The good news is that it’s the bank holiday and there’s not really much to see right now that people probably haven’t seen once or twice — and that’s from Blumhouse M3GAN won’t take the world by storm until January 6th, meaning the rest of the month belongs to the Na’vi.

On the other hand, it’s bank holidays, and that means it’s pretty darn cold outside, if not actively snowing. That, combined with the aforementioned three-hour runtime and concerns that the pandemic flares up in earnest again, could put some off seeing the film until its inevitable release on Disney+, likely in February or March.

Update 12/18/22 at 4:20pm ET: This post has been updated to include a video statement from director James Cameron.

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