Avatar 2 still have time. James Cameron’s movies have to macerate at the box office first. What I mean is that the film still has time to meet the objective that has been officially set: to become the third or fourth highest-grossing film in the history of cinema. I have not invented this, it is what James Cameron has declared (announced, promised) in a well-known interview in a marketing exercise that we had experienced before. Before the premiere of Avatarthe 20th Century studio, which was not owned by Disney at the time, set itself the goal of exceeding 1,840 million dollars in Titanic (as you read it). It was an ambitious challenge for a movie that wasn’t a franchise, nor was it a sequel with the ability to bring moviegoers to theaters in droves. Note that Cameron now has not wanted to set himself the challenge of overcoming even the Avatar original is a Avengers: Endgame, the two highest grossing films in history. He has said the third or fourth. Considering that the third highest grossing film in history is Titanicwhich entered 2,100 million dollars, and that the fourth is Star Wars: The Force Awakenswith 2,047 million dollars, from the 435 million dollars it has raised in its first weekend The sense of water in rooms from all over the world, including China, Avatar 2there are still some 1,600 million dollars ahead of him, which is many billions of dollars, but it is not an impossible task considering that there are two more weekends ahead coinciding with the Christmas campaign and that there is no blockbuster in theaters until the first movie of Marvel’s phase 5 is released on February 17, 2023, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniawhich leaves enough space for Avatar 2 to add up at the box office. That puts him on a tray two months ahead without competition. None of James Cameron’s movies started off with a bang. They all took their time. There is something like a Cameron effect, what remains to be seen is whether the miracle will also work with this film and there will be Cameron from the Island. Titanicgrossed $28 million in its opening weekend (which would be $47 million in 2022 with inflation, though without the same marketing power 25 years later) and ended up closing with $600.8 million (which would equal $1 billion today) at the local box office.
Avatar 2 has had the fourth best opening in the United States of 2022, behind only Doctor Strange 2, Black Panther 2 y Thor 4and paired with The Batman. In the international market, the film has collected 301 million dollars, which has made it the second international release of the year, only behind Doctor Strange 2. In Spain it has raised around 7.3 million euros (it has been released on 1,983 screens). Of the 1.2 million viewers who went to the cinema this weekend, more than 950,000 went to see Avatar 2. In any case, for me the most important fact is that 53% of the income in Spain comes from 3D theaters, which is where this film does business. In China it has entered 57 million dollars, the same as when it relaunched the original Avatar in that country in March 2021.
It was expected that Avatar 2, which has a budget, without taking into account marketing expenses, of regarding 450 million dollars, will gross between 150 and 170 million dollars in the United States during the first weekend in theaters. In the end it has entered 134 million dollars. In 2009, the original Avatar it grossed $77 million in its opening weekend. If we take inflation into account, $77 million in 2009 would be around $109.8 million in December 2022, if I’ve done the math right. The sequel’s release has still grossed more in its opening weekend in the local market than the original film. In the international market, Avatar (2009) started with $164.5 million (without China, which arrived in January 2010). With inflation it would be 176 million dollars. They’re also short of the $300 million he’s raised now. And in 2009 (on December 18), when the original film was released, there was nothing resembling a soccer World Cup (although there were severe storms in the Northeast United States), which should not affect the local box office as much. , but yes to the international one. FIFA estimates that 1.5 billion people watched the World Cup final between Argentina and France (keep in mind that officially, 1.12 billion people watched, according to the official figure, the 2018 final). Something has had to influence, although it does not explain everything.
The crisis in movie theaters does not fully explain that figure either (although if you take all the movies together, the theaters are affected and are fed by the big blockbusters and only by the big ones). blockbusters). Last year, Spider-Man: No Way Home it grossed $253 million in the local market (United States and Canada) and $587.2 million worldwide in its first weekend alone. Also is true that Spider-Man: No way home It is a film for all audiences and that Avatar 2 it has a type of violence that is not for everyone.
Disney
To think that the film can multiply the collection by 24, as happened in the weekends that followed Titanic in 2022, in the era of streamingIt’s quite risky. It is clear that Avatar 2 It will take time to reach the Disney Plus digital platform and that it will take advantage of it to occupy more time in movie theaters and will become strong in large premium formats (the so-called PLF). Now what you have to see is if it is going to happen to him as it happened to Top Gun Maverick, which continued to add above average box office successive weekends. Although the collection fell, it remained reasonably constant (if only by falling less than usual). Note that in its second weekend, the collection of Top Gun: Maverick fell 29%, when the normal thing is that a blockbuster of this type falls between 50% and 70% from the first weekend to the second. From the second to the third it fell by 42%, still below the usual. But it is that from the third to the fourth it only fell by 14%.
Disney
Avatar 2 It has been released the weekend before the weekends that coincide with Christmas, which predicts more free time to go to the cinema. Around a fifth of the pre-sale tickets for the film were not for the first weekend, but for subsequent ones. If it holds up, 435 million times three is $1.3 billion. It is not the 2,100 million that they aspire to, but surely it exceeds the break even of the film, much as James Cameron protests in interviews. To all this we must add all the machinery and merchandising, with strategies similar to those applied to the Avatar original to re-release the film shortly following it was released. That is if the collection is maintained, if it grows, as happened with Titanic, then we would talk regarding other figures. The Avatar original had a multiplier of 9.7, which is not 24, but not bad at all. I think that when Cameron has been conservative in his marketing message it has been because he knows exactly what he can and cannot achieve.