AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER opening | Where we are now | December 16 to 18, 2022 weekend
Opening weekend box office, charts and commentary
The current weekend: December 16 to 18, 2022
1) Avatar: The Way of Water opening
- This is an outstanding opening. On average, action adventure episode 2s open -8% lower than the first movie’s start. Avatar 2’s weekend figure is nearly double Avatar 1’s opening, and it’s nearly triple the average for the genre. Reviews are very good, as they were for the first film.
For context, Avatar 2 is also opening ahead of superhero episode 2s. During the last 15 years, superheroes have eclipsed action adventures as the premier action fantasy genre. But only three superhero 2s have outperformed this opening (Avengers 2 $191.3m, Dr. Strange 2 $187.4m, Guardians 2 $146.5m). Expectations aside, this is outstanding:
- With this weekend’s release in China, Avatar’s overseas business is going to lead domestic again (the first film made $261.8m in China). However, Russia is closed ($116.1m for the first film), and international currencies are weaker than when Avatar 1 played in late 2009/early 2010. At that time, one Euro was worth $1.44, now it's worth $1.06 — that’s a significant headwind.
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- Avatar is a live-action/animation hybrid driven by James Cameron's hard action storytelling. Cameron knows how to make use of the big screen — he was onto this 13 years ago. The film stretches audiences’ imagination. They responded last time with an A CinemaScore, and it’s the same this time. The movie is set up for a very strong run through the holidays.
- There’s been speculation about how much money Avatar needs to make to be profitable. Assuming a production cost of around $375m and marketing expenses of around $150m, anything over $1.1 billion in worldwide BO is going to generate profits after counting the ancillary income that follows theatrical, which over time represents as much or more money than theatrical.
Beyond that, this is a vast and sprawling project that encompasses merchandise, theme park IP, television spin-offs, and more. Who shares in which income streams, how much, and in what order are impossible to estimate. Ultimately, the Avatar series is going to be profitable, it’s going to feed all of Disney’s businesses, and the next film is on its way.
2) Where we are now
- The chart below is where we see the domestic box office finishing in 2022. We would like to be down less, but the gaps in the release schedule were too big (only 102 wide releases in 2022, vs 138 in 2019 and 152 in 2018), and the weakness in family moviegoing has been too pronounced (an est. $2.8b of family business in 2022, vs $8.9b in 2019 and $5.2b in 2018). We’ll get another look at families next weekend with Puss in Boots 2.
We see major improvement in next year’s release schedule as the creative output returns to more normal levels, particularly for the big series films. This was a wildly uneven year, with droughts at the start of the year, in May, and in late summer/fall:
