Despite only recently opening in cinemas on December 16, Avatar 2 has scored itself a place on 2022’s box office charts. According to Deadline, the long-awaited sequel to James Cameron’s 2009 science fiction movie Avatar, has already grossed $135 million domestically and over $300 million internationally in its opening weekend – making it one of the top ten highest-grossing movies of 2022 already.
Taking the international box-office into account, Avatar 2 has made a total of close to $435 million. This makes it is the third highest global weekend release in the pandemic era, just behind the Marvel movie Doctor Strange 2’s $442 million record.
According to the publication, the off-shore opening weekend for the film is 82% ahead of Top Gun: Maverick, 78% ahead of the first Avatar movie, 42% ahead of the adventure movie Jurassic World: Dominion and 24% behind last year’s superhero movie phenomenon Spider-Man: No Way Home. Pretty impressive, right?
Well, at first glance, yes, but this isn’t all great news, Pandora fans. While the initial takeaway for Avatar 2 is high overall, it is actually lower than originally expected.
This is in part due to the film’s performance in China, which was thought to bring in $100 million when in reality, it only brought in about $50 million. Avatar 2 needs to make somewhere between $2.08 billion and $2.05 billion in order to break even, and in the weeks following its weekend release, it needs to make at least a total of $1.49 billion in order to overtake the Tom Cruise movie Top Gun 2 as the highest-grossing movie in 2022.
Although the film didn’t hit China with a bang, Deadline reports Avatar 2 “was the No. 1 movie in all opening off-shore markets save Japan, where it placed No. 2.” So, there is still a shot at the sequel blowing records away. Stay tuned for updates.
Avatar 2 is out in cinemas now. For more Pandora fun, check out our Avatar 2 review, and Avatar 2 cast guide to get your alien movie fix.