Defying all logic, it looks like James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has somehow pulled off a post-pandemic miracle as updated box office projections show the film set to increase its takings by a substantial amount from last weekend's Christmas holiday haul. The film is looking good in its third weekend since release after Friday evening beat its own estimates with a haul of $24.4 million, which is up 27% from a week ago, as well as +7% from last weekend’s Christmas period, and a potential 4-day between $87 million to $92 million, according to industry sources.
Its historic competition includes 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which had $440.9 million by the same time of year, and additionally, The Way of Water now looks on course to topple the domestic total of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which should finish the weekend at $440 million domestic. Avatar is currently projected, conservatively, to see a $77 million weekend which would take it to $435.1 million.
The success of Avatar and its domestic weekend of $104.2 million is good news for cinema chains too — the increased foot traffic has seen a 5% increase in revenue from last year's New Year's Weekend when Spider-Man: No Way Home brought in a haul of $98.9 million.
The film is currently sitting at $1.2 billion globally — before this weekend's estimations have been taken into account — and the film is set to also overtake Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($411 million) this weekend as well.
New and revised box office projections for The Way of Water give the film a final gross of between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion which would guarantee it surpasses Top Gun: Maverick ($1.48 billion) as 2022’s biggest film while giving it a realistic shot at both overhauling Spider-Man: No Way Home's post-pandemic record of $1.9 billion, as well as becoming just the sixth film in history to reach $2 billion in box office takings. Should the film succeed, three of the top six would be Cameron films, a truly remarkable achievement.
In addition, the film is showing not just the sort of legs that make for a huge box office haul, but it has no competition for multiplex audiences until February when Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania arrives in theaters. The sequel to 2009's Avatar, it sees Jake Sully and Neytiri join the water clans of Pandora as they flee a new threat from the returning humans they had previously banished from the planet. The original film has earned $785 million domestically, and over $2.9 billion worldwide thanks to several well-timed re-releases over the years.
You can watch our interview with The Way of Water producer Jon Landau here.