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The wait for Avatar: The Way of Water is over, and its box office analysis has begun after its first weekend. Avatar (2009) became the highest-grossing movie of all time, earning $2.922 billion. So, a lot was expected out of Avatar 2 as well. But how has it performed on its opening weekend?
The Way of Water opened up with a $134 million domestic intake. Meanwhile, the international market added $300 million to allow the worldwide total to reach $434 million. These numbers do seem good, but are they good enough?
Is Avatar: The Way of Water a success or a failure?
The original projections for Avatar 2 were somewhere between 150-$175 million (domestically). On top of that, the film's production budget is reported to be around $460 million. So, for Avatar: The Way of Water to break even and turn in a profit, the movie has to make over $1 billion at least.
Keeping all these numbers in mind, the domestic opening of $134 million could feel mediocre, considering the fact that it opened lower than all three MCU movies over the year. And there were no other major movies playing to compete with James Cameron's sequel. So, maybe The Way of Water should have at least met its original projections of $150 million.
But still, there are many other factors to consider, which will, in turn, prove that Avatar 2 is a success after all.
Why Avatar 2 will be successful
Avatar opened with just $77 million domestically and still went on to become the biggest movie of all time. So, Avatar 2's $134 million is certainly better than that. Many would feel that it should have been much better because of the huge reputation of the original Avatar, but people need to look at it from a different angle.
Avatar was a revolutionary movie that became a worldwide phenomenon. But over the last 13 years, the hype for this movie has diminished, and the current market dynamics are extremely different. Avatar: The Way of Water is fighting a plethora of streaming content as well.
Another point to note is that the entire marketing campaign of Avatar 2 suggested that this film should be witnessed on the biggest screen possible. And because of a shortage of premium IMAX screens worldwide, people could be waiting for their turn to watch it in IMAX in the next few weeks. That's why most of its revenue will also come in the next couple of weeks, just like it did for the first film.
While Avatar 2 is a visual spectacle, its narrative is mostly a buildup for Avatar 3 and beyond. So, that could also result in lower box office numbers compared to the first one.
Also, the audience score of Avatar: The Way of Water stands at a solid 94%, and its critical score on rotten tomatoes is also 78% fresh. So, the movie is bound to rise with its good word of mouth in the coming days.
On top of that, Avatar 2 has also opened in China, which most Hollywood movies haven't over the last couple of years. China proved to be a big market for the original, as it brought in $202 million. And even though Avatar 2 has only opened with $57 million due to the pandemic in China, the movie is still bound to grow over there as the pandemic wears out.
With Avatar: The Way of Water having no competition in the upcoming months, and the Holiday period coming up, people will surely go to the theaters for a first or repeated viewing. Hence, expect the film to hold very strong in the coming weeks.
It can surpass $1 billion (thanks to a minor push from China), but the second weekend will determine whether it will beat Top Gun: Maverick.
