After just a few weeks in theaters at the tail-end of the year, Avatar: The Way of Water is on track to become the second-highest-grossing domestic release of 2022.
Per Variety, the sequel remains at the top of the box office coming into New Years' weekend, earning $24.4 million on Friday and making its current domestic cume $382.6 million. Overall, The Way of Water is expected to pull $66.8 million over the source of the weekend and $87.8 million overall from the four-day holiday weekend. Overall, the sci-fi epic's expected earnings from the weekend are more than $445 million, which would put it over the box office numbers for Marvel Studios' Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and make it the second-highest-grossing film of 2022 at the domestic box office. Meanwhile, Top Gun: Maverick remains the top-earning domestic release of the year with $718.7 million.
The sequel was projected to earn a worldwide total of $1 billion by New Year's Day, a checkpoint it surpassed after just two weeks in theaters. With a $1.1 billion worldwide box office gross, this puts James Cameron's sequel in the range of Maverick's $1.5 billion global take. After earning a current international total of $762.8 million, The Way of Water became poised to surpass the earnings of Maverick, which ended its international run with $770 million.
The Way of Water's Box Office Performance
Prior to the film's theatrical release, it was projected that The Way of Water would earn $525 million worldwide, with an estimated $175 million from the United States/Canada and $350 million internationally. On its first day in theaters, The Way of Water earned $53 million, eclipsing the $27 million Friday take from 2009's Avatar and making for Cameron's biggest opening to date.
Avatar remains the highest-grossing film of all time. Its sequel is reportedly one of the most expensive films ever made with a budget between $350 million and $400 million. It has been implied by Cameron that The Way of Water will need to make over $2 billion worldwide in order to break even.
The Way of Water is set a decade after the events of the original film and sees Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldaña reprise their respective roles as Jake Sulley and Neytiri. Other returning cast members include Stephen Lang as Colonel Quaritch and Sigourney Weaver. Cameron has planned three more films in the Avatar saga, though the director has stated that Avatar 4 and 5 will depend on the success of the first two sequels, including The Way of Water.
Avatar: The Way of Water is now in theaters.
Source: Variety