Before Avatar: The Way of Water came out, Big Jim Cameron said the film would need to make $2 billion to be a success. After its opening weekend, the film is is a little less than a quarter of the way there. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Avatar 2 earned an estimated $134 million, which is slightly less than expected, but still more than Top Gun: Maverick made its first weekend domestically ($127 million). International markets gave the film $301 million, serving up a grand total of $435 million in first weekend box office.
2022 has been a year of big box-office hits, with a handful of movies putting butts in seats and covering for some notable misses. Top Gun: Maverick overtook Cameron’s own Titanic as the seventh biggest domestic box office ever. And Glass Onion made $15 million despite only being shown in 600 theaters for one week. But then there were flippity-flops like Strange World and underperformers like Black Adam (no matter what the Rock says). Avatar: The Way of Water’s success is being watched very carefully, to figure out whether Da Movies are really back, or if Nicole Kidman did that AMC ad for nothing. And most importantly of all, Avatar 2’s success also determines whether or not we’ll ever get to see the Seed Bearer and his big seed.