With an additional $3 million this weekend, the Avatar re-release has now made $10.7 million overall from IMAX screenings alone, pushing its lifetime IMAX haul to an astonishing $268.6 million. Designed to drum up anticipation for December’s long-awaited Avatar: The Way of Water, the Avatar re-release has made over $15 million domestically, and nearly $40 million worldwide, proving again that there is a devoted fanbase for director James Cameron‘s science-fiction franchise.
IMAX screens represent 18% of the global box office this weekend. The re-release finished at the number five spot domestically, with an estimated $4.7 million. The film’s running domestic total now stands at nearly $780 million — the fourth-largest of all time, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($814 million), Avengers: Endgame ($858 million in 2019) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936 million in 2015).
Avatar has also extended its lead as the biggest film of all time at the global box office, with over $2.9 billion in the bank. It briefly ceded the top spot to Endgame, before reclaiming it with a special China re-release in 2021. Endgame’s global total stands at $2.797 billion. The top five all-time list also includes another Cameron film — Titanic ($2.2 billion), The Force Awakens ($2.06 billion), and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.04 billion).
Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver, Avatar is set in the 22nd century and tells a sweeping story about colonization and revolution. It combined Cameron’s technical wizardry with his fascination for environmentalism. The sequel has been in development for around a decade; Cameron had famously declared many years ago that he could picture himself making only Avatar movies for the rest of his career, but he also said recently that the franchise’s future would depend on how well The Way of Water performs.
A recent report predicted that The Way of Water is expected to generate around $649 million at the domestic box office, which would be lower than the inflation-unadjusted domestic gross of the original. The film is also estimated to earn $425 million and $214 million from video-on-demand and streaming platforms, respectively. By comparison, the first film generated nearly $430 million from domestic home video sales over a decade ago, according to box office tracking website The Numbers.
The Way of Water will have to fend off competition from two other tentpoles — Warner Bros’ Black Adam, and Disney’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The Way of Water will introduce new cast members such as Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Kate Winslet, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Cowell, and Vin Diesel. Slated for a December 16 release, The Way of Water was shot simultaneously with Avatar 3; two more sequels have been announced. You can watch our interview with Cameron here, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.
