Avatar: The Way of Water may have been bested by Top Gun: Maverick for the 2022 box office crown, but James Cameron’s epic is a long way from being done as it continues to rise up list of the highest grossing movies of all-time. According to Box Office Mojo, the extended New Year weekend box office has seen Avatar: The Way of Water’s total worldwide takings jump to $1.4 billion, sending the film past 2018’s Black Panther, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. This has pushed the Harry Potter franchise out of the list of the Top 15 all-time highest earners.
The late arrival of Avatar: The Way of Water in cinemas on December 16 meant the movie was not quite able to better the box office of summer hit Top Gun: Maverick, which claimed the title as the top movie of 2022. However, while the Top Gun sequel’s time at the box office ended months ago, Cameron’s return to Pandora is just getting started as it continues its march to what seems like an inevitable $2 billion plus haul. The real question for many is how high up the list of top earners can the movie climb.
After less than three weeks on release, Avatar: The Way of Water has already taken double the amount of all but a few movies of the last three years thanks to its staggering international performance. With just short of $1 billion taken overseas, the film’s position in the 2022 ranking was only hampered by a slightly lower than expected domestic performance. However, even the domestic takings alone were more than any non-top 10 release of the year’s worldwide gross.
Will Avatar 3 Be Able To Keep James Cameron’s Epic Afloat?
20th Century Studios
James Cameron was ready to end the Avatar franchise with a third movie if things with Avatar: The Way of Water didn’t go according to plan at the box office. There is now little doubt that all three of his future sequels will now be released, and potentially more besides. Recently producer Jon Landau commented on how the third movie is already pretty much completed filming, and scripts for all of the sequels are done. He said:
While Avatar 3 is expected to arrive in cinemas in December 2024, there is still a lot of work to be completed before then, with the first cut of the movie being a reported 9 hours long. While the theatrical cut that we see will be considerably shorter, it can still be expected to be another epic addition to the franchise.
“What we’ve done is, first of all, we’ve completed all four scripts for 2, 3, 4, and 5. [The cast] read them. They know where their characters go. They know. It informs how they play these scenes. We went out and we shot all of movie 2. We shot 95% of movie 3. We have a little bit that we have to still pick up. And we shot the first act of movie 4. […] I think one of the great things that we’ve done, and Jim has done in these scripts, is each movie is going to take you to new biomes and new cultures.”
