James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash has opened in some overseas territories, and opens in most major markets at midnight tonight, with some previews taking place ahead of that. The box office tracking has solidified over the last few days, and a picture is emerging.
The movie is tracking for a $90-105 million opening weekend domestically and a further $250-275 million overseas. This will give it an opening start of $340-365 million globally.
Now, context is important. The top 5 global openings for Hollywood movies this year are:
$341 million – Lilo & Stitch
$313 million – Jurassic World: Rebirth
$322 million – A Minecraft Movie
$226 million – Wicked: For Good
$220 million – Superman
So, you can already see that it is angling in on potential top spot for the Hollywood crowd. Chinese entry Ne Zha 2 blew all of these away, and opened to $434 million, while several Bollywood movies would have sold 3x more tickets on opening weekend in India alone than any of these entries, but we are only talking Hollywood movies here.
The other thing to consider with Avatar movies is their customary longevity in theaters, and their boost from IMAX and 3D screens. They run for weeks and weeks, usually staying at the top of the box office while doing so.
So it seems like Avatar is doing that thing, yet again. You know. The thing that it does. Where nobody is talking about it, there is no buzz whatsoever, and then… BAM… it arrives and steamrolls all before it as it secures box office domination once more.
How? Why? These are the mysteries of modern Hollywood, and we had just better get used to it.
Looking at the franchise overall, the 2009 first instalment opened to $77 million domestically. People started to whisper that it might flop on the opening weekend, but it stayed at #1 for seven weeks, and nothing else came close. The final haul, including a re-release, was $760 million domestically on the way to $2.92 billion worldwide.
The second started stronger with $134 million domestically before getting $688 million domestically and $2.3 billion worldwide.
So this third entry is behind the first two, but this is completely normal, as sequels are almost always a game of diminishing returns. It is practically unavoidable.
With a $400 million budget, it needs to join the $1 billion club just to break even. History tells us there is no point betting against that with Avatar.
The fourth and fifth movies are not signed off yet, so the haul of Avatar: Fire & Ash has implications. Cameron has said he would move on if this one doesn’t perform to warrant further movies.
