Avatar: The Way of Water Scores Best Wednesday Box Office of the Entire Year

Avatar: The Way of Water now owns the best Wednesday at the box office in 2022. Interestingly, the record gets set on the last week of the calendar year. It's been a wild rocket up the earnings ladder for James Cameron's blockbuster sequel. $20.4 million manages to maneuver it ahead of Top Gun: Maverick's staggering $14.8 million total back in June. In the animated movie department, Minions: Rise of Gru also found itself matching up with $13.5 million over the summer. But, Avatar has managed to pass them both off the strength of that late holiday window and the lack of other big fish in the sea. Just a few days ago, Avatar managed to become just the third movie to reach $1 billion this year, and it could continue to climb as we enter 2023.

Avatar 2 Had Some Obstacles

Cameron spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the pressure dangling over his head with a return to Pandora. The studio was expecting massive things out of The Way of Water. All of those shareholders wanted to make sure that Avatar 2 was a smash-hit. Early box office has been amazing, so maybe some of that pressure will subside a bit.

"I think there was a lot of tension around length," Cameron said of the expansive runtime "And because it's a complicated linear narrative, which is the worst scenario for trying to shorten, you've got a complex story servicing a lot of characters, and it's like dominos falling: This has to happen for that to happen. You're not following a bunch of parallel plot lines in a way that you could take a lot out."

"The hardest thing when you're trying to shorten a film is to hold onto the things that don't advance the plot, that are beautiful or scary or suspenseful for their own sake," the director also revealed. "Things came out, and then if I felt the pacing was off, we put things back in."

What Can You Expect In Avatar 2?

Disney offers this synopsis of all the action in the ocean: "Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family (Jake, Neytiri, and their kids), the trouble that follows them, the lengths they go to keep each other safe, the battles they fight to stay alive,  and the tragedies they endure. Directed by James Cameron and produced by Cameron and Jon Landau, the film stars Zoe Saldana, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement and Kate Winslet." 

Will the movie end up reaching $2 billion? Let us know in the comments down below!