Disney CEO Bob Iger Congratulates James Cameron on Avatar: The Way of Water Box Office Success

By Adam Barnhardt

Avatar: The Way of Water continues to make a killing at the box office, recently becoming just the sixth movie to make $2 billion in theaters. Suffice it to say, Disney executives seem to be very impressed with the returns its seeing from the film—so much so, Bob Iger took to Twitter to congratulate those involved in the film's production. Monday after, the Disney CEO shared a congratulatory message with filmmaker James Cameron, producer Jon Landau, and the others involved in the film.

"Congraulations to @JimCameron, @JonLandau, & the entire @20thcentury team who worked on #AvatarTheWayOfWater," Iger tweeted. "And thank you to audiences all around the world for making this film a phenomenal success."

Through Sunday, the film has grossed $2.02 billion around the world, $598M of which has come from domestic exhibitors. Given the success the two Avatar films have had to date, it's all but guaranteed Cameron will continue to be able to tell his overarching story through Avatar 5. Principal photography for the third film in the franchise has already wrapped, with a release date set for next December.

"We mixed the schedules for 2 and 3 together, based on the types of scenes and the environments," Cameron revealed to Variety last year. "I said, let's just treat it like it's a six-hour miniseries and we're only going to go to Frankfurt once. We're going to shoot all the scenes from 2 and 3 at the same time. That was more or less the motif. Actor availability was an issue as well. Anything that had to be done with a specific actor, we did all the scenes for 2 and 3 together — and a little bit of 4. Because once again, I had to shoot the kids out. They're allowed to age six years in the middle of the story on page 25 of movie 4. So I needed everything before then, and then everything after, we'll do later."

Avatar: The Way of Water features several returning stars that include Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, CCH Pounder, Matt Gerald, and Sigourney Weaver. The cast for the sequels will include several more newcomers than returning members, though, with the likes of Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Oona Chaplin, David Thewlis and CJ Jones all set to appear as well.

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