That’s it: less than two weeks after its release, Avatar: the Way of Water is a billionaire. James Cameron’s feature film reached the prestigious milestone on Tuesday December 27 after twelve days of release.
In 2022, movies Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World: Dominion have also accumulated gains in the ten figures, but more slowly: respectively in 31 days and three and a half months.
At the end of the day last Tuesday, the blockbuster from Disney and 20th Century had generated receipts of 317 million US in North America and 713 million elsewhere in the world. The blue avatars of the exomoon Pandora therefore seem to have overcome the winter storm in the United States. In China, where producers had big ambitions, however, concerns around COVID-19 have limited revenues to US$108 million so far.
Avatar: the Way of Water becomes the sixth film in history to reach a billion at the box office within two weeks.
In November, in an interview with the magazine QG, Canadian director James Cameron said his film needed to gross at least US$2 billion at the global box office to break even. The production budget is estimated between 250 million US and half a billion.
The inaugural volume of the Avatar saga (2009), which had officially cost 237 million US, remains the most profitable film in the history of cinema, with box office revenues of 2.92 billion.