Avatar: The Way of Water Box Office Has Second-Best Wednesday of the Year

Avatar: The Way of Water has the second-best Wednesday box office of this year. The earnings ladder is in for a big shakeup whenever James Cameron's latest blockbuster bows. This week, it logged the second-biggest Monday and followed it up with a Wednesday to remember as well. $14.3 is nothing to sneeze at and just barely behind Top Gun: Maverick $14.8 million back in June. Once again Minions: Rise of Gru finds itself pushed aside despite an impressive $13.5 million earlier this year in July. An interesting wrinkly lies in the fact that IMAX has been a big driver for Disney with this release. The bigger screen ended up accounting for 14.6% go the total sales on Wednesday. Christmas weekend will be key for the movie as estimates have it near $90 million over the holiday grouping. But, time will tell.

Avatar 2's Various Challenges

In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron revealed that there was a lot of studio pressure around this movie. Many of the principal players here have everything to gain from The Way of Water being an absolute smash. Early box office returns are encouraging, but the race to $1 billion is far from over.

"I think there was a lot of tension around length," Cameron explained when the runtime came up. "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 added, but he wasn't finished. "Things came out, and then if I felt the pacing was off, we put things back in."

What Happens In Avatar 2?

Here's what Disney is saying about Cameron's latest stunner: "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." 

What did you think of The Way of Water? Do you think $1 billion is still in reach before 2023? Let us know down in the comments!