Avatar The Way of Water swims past $1 billion at worldwide box office; that’s Rs 8,200 crore

Director James Cameron previously said that the film will need to finish as the third or fourth biggest movie in history to break even, which means that the final target for The Way of Water is around $2 billion. And that’s the bare minimum; it will only start making a profit once it eclipses that figure. Variety estimated that the threshold for profitability is more in the $1.5 billion range. The film’s budget has been reported to be anywhere between $350 million and $460 million, which would make it among the most expensive movies ever made.

But the theatrical marketplace has changed greatly in the decade after the first Avatar’s release, and especially post-pandemic. Projections estimate that The Way of Water will finish with between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion globally. The highest-grossing film of the pandemic era is Spider-Man: No Way Home, which finished with $1.9 billion in box office receipts.

Cameron has said that regardless of how The Way of Water performs, a third film will likely meet its 2024 release date because it has already been shot. Plans to forge ahead with a fourth and fifth film would depend entirely on the performance of Avatar 2 and 3.