After over a decade, 20th Century Studios/Disney’s Avatar: The Way of Water’—the sequel to the biggest blockbuster of the Industry, ‘Avatar (2009)’—has finally been released in the domestic theaters, and as expected, the critical reviews have mostly been positive; especially for VFX and CGI and larger-than-life screenplay, but also criticized for its long duration. But leaving reviews, the performance of the sequel at the ticket window may caused concern for production at the beginning because it was not as expected, but after months of release, lots of happiness on the maker’s face.
Is Avatar 2 Hit Or Flop?
According to reports, the direction of James Cameron and the production by Disney/20th Century Studios, the epic sci-fi sequel ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ was released in the USA on December 16, 2022, in over 4200 theaters, collecting $53 million in its opening day (including $17 million from Thursday night previews) and $134 million on its opening weekend in North America. Overall, it has so far grossed $684.07 million domestically and $1.636 billion overseas, for a worldwide total of $2.320 billion, which is one of the biggest performances ever[1].
According to reports, ‘Avatar’s sequel is one of the most expensive films in the industry, and as per James Cameron, it needs around over $2 billion to make a profit. But on paper, the production cost for ‘Avatar 2’ is itself $400 million, and makers spent around the same amount on P&A—overall, the break-even mark at $1.3 billion. With the excellent performance, ‘Avatar 2’ is currently in the profit zone, and it has over $2.3 billion box office potential; with reference to this projection, it’s a complete and big box office success. It also becomes the highest-grossing film of 2022 after beating ‘Top Gun: Maverick’.
Compared to the original ‘Avatar’s $77 million debut, ‘Avatar 2’ is far above, but to a global lifetime, breaking ‘Avatar’s $2.923 billion record is an unfulfilled dream for ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’. But still, it’s one of the record-breaking sequels of history— The third highest-grossing film ever and 3rd $2 billion film of Cameron’s career. A shocking thing is that if it didn’t do well, then questions could have arisen about the upcoming films of the franchise— From the statement of James Cameron. But now all the things are in favor.
Talking about the exact critical response, ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ has received an 7.6/10* IMDb rating based on 486k+ Votes, and on Rotten Tomatoes, it scored 76/100% based on 450 critical reviews.
Read Also: Avatar: The Way of Water Aka Avatar 2 Budget Revealed & It’s Reportedly $400 Million
