Avatar: The Way of Water Has Huge Streaming Debut

Both 2009's Avatar and 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water were absolute smashes at the box office, with both blockbuster films grossing over $1 billion worldwide. Now that The Way of Water recently made its debut on streaming services, the film has crossed another milestone. On Thursday, it was confirmed that Avatar: The Way of Water topped the Nielsen Top 10 ratings for the week of June 5-11, 2023. Between streams on both Disney+ and Max, Avatar: The Way of Water was streamed a total of 1.9 billion minutes in that week.

"I'm not thinking of it in those terms," director James Cameron previously said of The Way of Water's box office performance. "I'm thinking of it in the terms of we're going back to theaters around the world. They're even going back to theaters in China where they're having this big COVID surge. We're saying as a society, 'We need this! We need to go to theaters.' Enough with the streaming already! I'm tired of sitting on my ass."

What Will Avatar 3 Be About?

Avatar 3 is set to make its debut in theaters on December 19, 2025, and will not only continue to the narrative of The Way of Water, but will introduce a new Na'vi clan of volcano-dwelling "Ash People." As the cast of The Way of Water revealed to ComicBook.com's Brandon Davis late last year, the prospect of what could be explored in Avatar 3 is really enticing. 

"It was about 2015 when I was pushing my wife who was pregnant at the time," Sam Worthington explained. "So we were pushing around a room with all these visuals, and the visuals was of this family story mapped out over this saga of however movies. It wasn't even movies at that point. It was just this story that Jim [Cameron] was kind of campfire telling me and her, and I'm thinking, 'I'm about to have a kid and about to follow this kind of adventure of a family was kind of had a weird parallel symmetry.' I think that was very exciting that if we got the opportunity to tell the whole saga, that would be great."

"I've read two and three, so, I know what happens in two and three and, yeah, I can say that... Well, at the table read we had two and three, which was like, you know, basically this much. And we had, we spent two whole days reading the whole movie," Jack Champion teased.

What is Avatar 2 about?

Set more than a decade after the events of the first film, Avatar: The Way of Water begins to tell the story of the Sully family, 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. The film will see the return of Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Giovanni Ribisi, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore, Dileep Rao, CCH Pounder, and Matt Gerald.

New cast members include Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Brendan Cowell, Michelle Yeoh, Jemaine Clement, Oona Chaplin, David Thewlis, and CJ Jones.

What did you think of Avatar: The Way of Water? How do you feel about its streaming performance? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!