Avatar Underperforms, but Creeps to $441M Opening

 With a rather spectacular development budget, it was always going to be a little hit-and-miss as to whether Avatar: The Way of Water would meet the lofty benchmarks needed for both profit and to boost the wider Box Office totals for 2022. To date, well, it’s not looking great. Blake & Wang P.A entertainment attorney, Brandon Blake, unpacks the totals so far. 

Brandon Blake


Total Global Launch

With its full opening weekend under its belt, Avatar 2 has managed to net a global total of $441.6M, with $307.6M of that coming from international play. While it did have a stronger Sunday than initially predicted internationally, it’s lackluster to say the least. By its own needed benchmarks, that is. It does manage to make it to the 3rd highest global weekend of the pandemic era, as well as the 2nd highest global opening this year, which is nothing to sneeze at.

 

What does this mean in real terms? This does put it (considering like-for-like) a cozy 82% ahead of Top Gun: Maverick and 42% ahead of Jurassic World: Dominion for their opening weekends, as well as 78% ahead of the first film. However, it’s also lagging the biggest performer in recent years for the holiday season- Spider-Man: No Way Home- by a meaty 24%. 

Below Projections

For a film this expensive to make, that’s not entirely a good thing, although there’s still promise. It has failed to meet its predicted benchmarks, however. Mostly due to weak uptake on the Chinese market, making only $57.1M of the expected $100M bow.

 

However, holiday season releases are historically tricky. People take their time to watch new movies, with leave allowing them that freedom. Word of mouth has been fairly solid, which is a good indicator of future performance. And this still takes it to the No 1 slot for opening offshore markets everywhere except Japan, where it made No 2. 

 

Will we soon be discussing brighter results from this key year-end release? We’ll have to wait and see. For now, it could go either way.

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