‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Hits $1 Billion At The Global Box Office, Becoming The 6th Fastest Movie To Hit That Mark

Before the release of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” James Cameron made a lot of headlines after declaring his new film would need to be one of the Top 5 highest-grossing films of all time just to break even. Many took that quote and extrapolated that Cameron wanted ‘The Way of Water’ to hit $2 billion to become profitable during its theatrical run.

French cinemas amassed nearly 152 million admissions in 2022, new data from the National Cinema Center (CNC) shows. That’s an estimated 26.9% off the pre-pandemic three-year average (2017-2019), and an estimated 59.2% hike on 2021 which endured 138 days of movie theater closures. France reports its box office in terms of admissions, however, the total for the year is expected to exceed $1 billion.

China’s box office in 2022 dropped 36% versus 2021, reaching approximately RMB 30B ($4.35B). According to China.org, citing figures from the China Film Administration, 85% of the 2022 revenue was generated by local movies, led by The Battle at Lake Changjin II with RMB 4.07B ($636M at historical rates, per comScore). This past weekend, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water became the highest-grossing studio import of the year, overtaking Jurassic World Dominion with an estimated $152.8M through Sunday.

Refresh for latest…: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water rang in the New Year with another $186.7M from 52 international markets for a $1.379B global cume to date. Excluding China, the film rose 4% from last weekend’s Christmas frame offshore (including China it was even with last session). The international box office now stands at an estimated $957M, meaning Way of Water will cross $1B overseas early this week. 

SUNDAY AM, NEW YEAR’S DAY: Refresh for more analysis and chart While New Year’s Eve is typically a better moviegoing day than Christmas Eve, business was still down yesterday at -27% from Friday for all movies. That’s a similar decline to last weekend’s Friday-to-Christmas Eve (-26%), however New Year’s Eve made more than Christmas Eve, $27.9M to $22.2M. Moviegoing is expected to be +19% on New Year’s Day, and there will be an extra cushion in Monday, Jan. 2 as many typically have off in honor of the Sunday holiday. Per our sources, weather wasn’t an issue this weekend.

It was another $20M day for James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water, so big that it was the biggest regular box office Thursday of the year after the sequel’s Dec. 22 take of $14.6M and Top Gun: Maverick‘s June 2 gross. The movie’s running total is $358M stateside with a 3-day expected to be around $50M and will cross the $400M threshold on New Year’s Day per box office sources. New Year’s Eve Saturday isn’t expected to be as depressed as Christmas Eve was a week ago.

James Cameron's work as a writer and director of such films as Titanic (1997), Avatar (2009), The Abyss (1989), Aliens (1986) and Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) has left an indelible mark on the moviemaking industry.In most cases his epics are some of the most expensive and longest running films with no shortage of action.While his latest grand adventure Avatar: The Way of Water runs 192 minutes (3 hours and 12 minutes), this go around he actually decided to shorten the runtime, in part, as to not 'fetishize' gun violence. Avoiding gratuitous violence: James Cameron, 68, revealed that he cut out 10 minutes from Avatar: The Way Of Water that he deemed unnecessary in order to 'not fetishize the gun, like I did on a couple of Terminator movies 30+ years ago' 'I actually cut about 10 minutes of the movie targeting gunplay action,' Cameron told Esquire Middle East, as reported by Huff Post. 'I wanted to get rid of some of the ugliness, to find a balance between light and dark.

Director James Cameron’s Avatar 3 is already in post-production and parts of Avatar 4 have already been filmed. That’s while he’s doing promotional duty with the December release of Avatar: The Way of Water, the sequel to the original film.

After two weeks in theaters, James Cameron‘s “Avatar: The Way Of Water” passed $1.1 billion at the global box office. A strong start, but will it reach Cameron’s desired gross of matching or surpassing the 2009 film’s 2.923 billion gross? Only time will tell.

After earning the highest grossing Tuesday of 2022 with $24.1M, 20th Century Studios/Disney/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water also notched the best Wednesday of the year yesterday with $20.4M beating Top Gun: Maverick‘s June 1 take of $14.8M, and Avatar 2‘s first Wednesday of $14.4M. At a running total of $337.9M through 13 days, the James Cameron directed, Jon Landau produced sequel is pacing 1% ahead of Top Gun: Maverick at the same point in time.

Kim Kardashian and daughter North West took to TikTok on Wednesday to upload a new clip with an Avatar filter.The 42-year-old mogul and her nine-year-old mini me were covered in blue, as well as face-warping effects in the seconds-long clip.It comes as the James Cameron-directed film recently passed $1 billion at the box office. Cute post: Kim Kardashian and daughter North West took to TikTok on Wednesday to upload a new clip with an Avatar filter Kardashian and West sat side-by-side on a couch at their Calabasas abode to create the video.Kim, who recently ditched her platinum blonde color to go back to her dark tresses, wore her hair in a center part and low, loose ponytail.  North rocked long, chunky individual braids throughout her head as she clung close to her mom's shoulder.The snippet was soundtracked to tribal-sounding music from the film and the two took turns slowly moving their hands across the screen.  Quality time: The 42-year-old mogul and her nine-year-old mini me were covered in blue, as well as face-warping effects in the seconds-long clipAvatar's sequel, The Way Of Water, crossed the $1billion mark on Tuesday night, just 13 days after its global release.Deadline reported on Tuesday morning that the movie had already made over $900million over Christmas weekend.And the film picked up even more steam on Monday, also known as Boxing Day, as some people had off from work.The movie claimed the top spot for the second straight week in a row with $19.5 million grossed over the holiday weekend.

Any cynicism about a broken down Christmas box office, impacted by weather, was wiped away Tuesday as 20th Century Studios/Disney/Lightstorm’s Avatar: The Way of Water racked up $23.8M sending its domestic cume to $317.1M. In addition, the sequel flew past the $1 billion mark at the worldwide box office. Director James Cameron has told the media that the breakeven point for Avatar: The Way of Water stands at $2 billion global mark.

When you think of a classic James Cameron action film, such as “Terminator,” “T2: Judgment Day,” “True Lies,” and definitely “Aliens,” you think about huge, violent action set pieces with lots and lots of guns. Today, Cameron is a different type of filmmaker, especially when it comes to gun violence, and he’s not sure if he could ever go back to the type of action he did previously.

Avatar's sequel, The Way Of Water, will cross the $1billion mark on Tuesday night, which is just 13 days after its global release.Deadline reported on Tuesday morning that the movie already made over $900million over Christmas weekend.And the film picked up even more steam on Monday, also known as Boxing Day, which several people had off from work as Christmas fell on a Sunday this year. Big money: Avatar's sequel, The Way of Water, will cross the $1billion mark on Tuesday just 13 days after its global release  They made the movie a hit: (L-R) Kate Winslet, Sigourney Weaver, James Cameron, Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington on December 4 in LondonThe movie claimed the top spot for the second straight week in a row with $19.5 million grossed over the holiday weekend.

Refresh for latest…: James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water is close on its way to the $1B global box office mark, having more than handily crossed $900M worldwide through its second Monday. This is the latest benchmark for the highly-anticipated sequel, and comes just 13 days after global rollout began. With $955.1M through Monday, The Way of Water has become the No. 3 highest-grosser of 2022 and the No. 4 biggest film of the pandemic era. What’s more, it is expected to hit the $1B worldwide milestone with today’s turnout. 

Avatar's sequel, The Way of Water, claimed the top spot for the second straight week in a row with $19.5 million grossed over the holiday weekend.Despite a frigid winter storm across the United States knocking out power at some theaters and shut down highways, the highly-awaited science fiction epic managed to cross the cross the $700 million mark worldwide, according to The Wrap. The outlet reported that industry experts predicted a higher total for the movie over the last four days, after it garnered $434.5million at the box office during its global debut. Going strong: Avatar's sequel, The Way of Water, claimed the top spot for the second straight week in a row with $19.5 million grossed over the holiday weekendAvatar's director James Cameron said the film, which tied with The Batman as the fourth highest domestic debut of the year needs to earn $2 billion to break even. The original Avatar didn't have a monstrous opening weekend, opening in mid-December 2009 to $77 million...

Coming out of its second weekend, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has banked an estimated $855.4M globally through Sunday. The sophomore session added $168.6M at the international box office in 52 markets for a $601.7M running cume.

Back to Pandora — again. Before Avatar: The Way of Water hit theaters in December 2022, director James Cameron was already mostly done with the third film in the franchise.

In what has become an end-of-year tradition, Barack Obama revealed his favorite movies of 2022. The list is, as usual for Obama, weighted toward prestige films. One title that’s not on the list: Avatar: The Way of Water.