As Avatar: The Way of Water continues to dominate the global box office on its seventh week of release, IMAX has officially announced that the epic science fiction film has become the biggest first-run IMAX release ever, with a total of $239 million so far. However, due to the theatrical re-release of the first Avatar in September of last year, which put the movie at $270 million, the film still sits second when accounting for cumulative runs.

Domestically, the film has tallied $83 million in IMAX ticket sales, which continue to grow as the movie dominates premium large format screens until the theatrical re-issue of Titanic and the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in February. This weekend, the film earned another $7.3 million globally from IMAX screens, with $2.6 million coming from its domestic run alone. Internationally, the film now holds the title of IMAX's largest international result of all time, with an additional $4.7 million this weekend, adding to a total of $156.1 million.

According to recent reports, Avatar: The Way of Water has now become the fourth highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Alongside crossing the rare $2 billion threshold, director James Cameron holds the title of the first filmmaker in history to have three films achieve this feat. Despite an opening of $435 million, the film has managed to carry good legs at the box office due to good word-of-mouth alongside premium formats such as 3D, which alone boosted an additional $1 billion.

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With $2 billion at the box office so far, Avatar has solidified itself as a franchise with staying power as Cameron continues expanding his growing universe. As audiences continue to flock to the latest Avatar film, Cameron still has much in store for the growing franchise. In December 2024, a third untitled installment will be released, which reportedly will focus on Lo'ak, the son of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), as the main character, and introduce a new tribe called the Ash People, who will showcase the Na'vi in a new angle.

Following the release of the third movie, which has already completed filming, two other films are also in production, with expected releases in 2026 and 2028, respectively. In addition to the upcoming sequels, the franchise will also expand in the realm of video games with the release of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora from Ubisoft. With so much expected down the line, fans of the franchise have much to look forward to as Pandora makes its triumphant return across various formats.

Avatar: The Way of Water is now playing in theaters. Check out Collider's interview with Cameron about the upcoming sequels below.