Avatar: The Way of Water Box Office Swims Past $600 Million in a Week

Avatar: The Way of Water has now grossed $609.7 million (about Rs. 5,052 crore) at the worldwide box office. This represents commercial figures for the new Avatar movie through Thursday, reflecting strong mid-week play, following its sizeable $435 million (about Rs. 3,604 crore) collected during the opening weekend. Roughly $427 million (about Rs. 3,540 crore) has been collected from markets outside the US, including India and the all-too-rare biggest market for Hollywood since the COVID-19 pandemic, China. Within the US and Canada, James Cameron’s hotly-anticipated sequel has earned a total of $183 million (about Rs. 1,516 crore).

According to Deadline, the top 10 markets for Avatar 2 from outside the US were led by China, which earned $70.5 million (about Rs. 584 crore), with France adding $37 million (about Rs. 306 crore) to the bag. Avatar: The Way of Water performed fairly well in Korea and India too, adding $32.1 million (about Rs. 266 crore) and $26.5 million (about Rs. 220 crore), respectively. Coming back to Europe, German theatres drew $26.1 million (about Rs. 216 crore) in ticket sales, while the UK poured in $21.6 million (about Rs. 179 crore).

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Beyond that, we have Brazil, where Avatar 2 has grossed $12.6 million (about Rs. 104 crore), which was slightly topped by Italy with $13.8 million (about Rs. 114 crore). Mexico has contributed $19.4 million (about Rs. 161 crore) so far, whereas Australia did Pandora business worth $15.8 million (about Rs. 131 crore).

It’s in the weeks to come when Avatar 2’s strength will be fully tested, based on how many seats it’s able to fill on a recurring basis. The original 2009 Avatar managed to collect merely $242 million (about Rs. 2,004 crore) at the worldwide box office during its opening weekend, but maintained enough hype over the months to come, to become the biggest movie of all time. Neither Disney nor 20th Century Studios have revealed the production budget for Avatar: The Way of Water, but reports suggest that it sits at around $400 million (about Rs. 3,313 crore).

In order to break even, the film has to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history,” Cameron said earlier. (That’s because production budgets don’t account for marketing spends.)

For what it’s worth, Cameron has experience getting there. His 1997 disaster romance film Titanic, and J.J. Abrams’ soft reboot Star Wars: The Force Awakens have both grossed over $2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,500 crore) apiece. The hefty runtime of Avatar: The Way of Water, clocking in at 3 hours and 12 minutes, is also said to pose a challenge in driving people to theatres. Though that didn’t stop Titanic.

Avatar: The Way of Water is now playing in theatres in India, in English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.