Avatar: The Way of Water Wins Weekend Box Office, Crosses $1.9 Billion Globally

By Liam Crowley

The Na'vi continue to reign supreme over the box office. Avatar: The Way of Water pencilled in its fifth consecutive weekend box office win, hauling in $31.1 million over the traditional three days with an expected $40 million total for the full four-day holiday weekend. This comes as competition crescendos, as Tom Hanks's A Man Called Otto expanded to a wide release and Gerard Butler's Plane debuted domestically. Over the three-day weekend, A Man Called Otto brought in $12.5 million, bringing its worldwide total to $35.7 million, while Plane landed to an even $10 million.

While the nine-figure weekends for Avatar: The Way of Water are in the rear view, James Cameron's epic is far from slowing down. The $40 million holiday haul is nearly double what Spider-Man: No Way Home, December 2021's biggest blockbuster, brought in on its MLK weekend.

These impressive digits push Avatar The Way of Water even closer to its now-infamous $2 billion target. As of this writing, The Way of Water sits at $1.9 billion worldwide. This makes it the seventh-highest grossing movie of all time, with only $15 million between itself and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Looking at its global haul separately, Avatar: The Way of Water's $1.3 billion sits comfortably in the top five, alongside Marvel Studios's Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The other two pictures to round out that catalog are both Cameron products: Avatar (2009) and Titantic.

"I'm not thinking of it in those terms," Cameron said regarding having three of the top five films at the international box office. "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 a--."

Even with the colossal bar it had to reach, Cameron certified that The Way of Water's financial success warrants future films.

"It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we'll easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can't wiggle out of this and I'm gonna have to do these other sequels," Cameron said. "I know what I'm going to be doing the next six or seven years."

Avatar: The Way of Water is currently in cinemas.

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