‘Avatar: The Path of Water’ has already collected $1.7 billion at the global box office and has become the fifth highest-grossing film in history
Avatar: The Last Airbender, which hit the big screen 13 years after the release of the first part (which is still the highest-grossing film with a worldwide total of $2.9 billion), currently ranks 7th in the top ten most popular films of all time.
James Cameron (whose 1997 film Titanic is third in the top 10) is also the director with the most mentions on the list of highest-grossing films. He previously reported that Waterway was so expensive to produce – with a reported budget of over $400 million – that it would have to become the third or fourth biggest film of all time to break even (that is, take in about $2 billion at the global box office).
‘Avatar: The Path of Water’ collected $1 billion in 12 days: $300,000 of which was in North America and $700 was the international box office
The film is expected to earn $1.708 billion in the near future, with Avatar 2 leapfrogging 2019’s The Lion King (which earned $1.663 billion) and 2015’s Jurassic World (which earned $1.671 billion) to become the seventh highest-grossing film of all time times at the global box office.
‘Avatar: The Path of Water’ entered the list of the 10 most popular films of all time, beating ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Jurassic World’
Despite the good numbers, ‘Avatar: The Path of Water’ still has to overcome several important steps to climb in the ranking of the most popular films of all time. The next four benchmarks for Cameron’s creation to beat are: Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1.916 billion), Avengers: Infinity War ($2.048 billion), Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($2.069 billion) and ‘Titanic’.
However, there is a significant gap between these films and the top two (2019’s Avengers: Endgame ($2.797 billion) and the original Avatar). In order to claim the first place in the list, ‘The Way of Water’ needs to collect more than one billion dollars. Given the fact that the film is one of the few pandemic-era releases to be broadcast in China, this could give it a huge advantage.
While Avatar: The Last Airbender will still hold the top spot at the US domestic box office this weekend, horror film M3GAN made a strong debut on Friday. Potentially other future releases such as House Party, Knock at the Cabin, Magic Mike’s Last Dance and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantum Mania -Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, have a chance to pull off a similar feat, bit by bit taking away the box office dominance of Cameron’s film.
The sequel takes place more than ten years after the events of the first film and follows main characters Jake Sully and Neytiri as they try to save their planet Pandora from an invasion of humans from Earth.
Cameron worked with technology for years and presented a film with an ultra-modern frame rate – in Japan, projectors could not cope with it in some places, cinemas were not ready for 48 frames per second and had to return money to the audience.
The second film is already confirmed to be profitable, which suggests that there will be more sequels (Cameron ideally wants to make five films). In particular, the director announced in the next ‘Avatar’ the story of local residents, the Na’vi, whose lives are connected with the element of fire.
