Excerpt from Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Disney
The opening weekend of Disney “Avatar: Fire and Ash” was less of a fire and more of a simmer.
And that’s what we expect from the full theatrical release of the third installment of James Cameron’s Avatar franchise.
During its first three days in theaters, “Fire and Ash” grossed $88 million, well below analysts’ expectations, who were expecting an opening gross of between $110 million and $125 million. For comparison, 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” grossed $134 million during the same three-day period.
Internationally, the film grossed $257 million, bringing the film’s worldwide opening to approximately $345 million.
“Fire and Ash” faced theatrical headwinds, namely its three-hour-plus running time. There was also less pent-up demand than “The Way of Water,” released more than a decade after the first Avatar film. Some analysts and box office critics noted that “Fire and Ash” had less technological innovation than its predecessors, which had been a driving factor in past ticket sales.
About 5.2 million domestic moviegoers went to see “Fire and Ash,” according to EntTelligence data, a massive drop from the 8.7 million who ventured out in 2022 to see “The Way of Water” opening weekend.
However, the Avatar franchise has never been successful at the box office. The first film, 2009’s “Avatar,” only grossed $77 million in its opening weekend domestically, but remained in theaters for nearly a year. Upon its theatrical release, the film grossed $2.7 billion worldwide. With re-releases, the film now stands at $2.9 billion, according to Comscore data.
“The Way of Water” ran in theaters for 23 weeks and grossed $2.3 billion worldwide.
“With less than two weeks remaining at the box office at the end of the year, the pressure on ‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ to deliver big results was intense and while the film may have fallen a bit short of opening weekend projections prior to release, the Avatar films have always been known for their marathon box office trajectories,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore’s head of market trends.
The sale of premium large-format tickets also contributes to the franchise at the box office. The Avatar films were over-indexed with the more expensive experiential screens like IMAX and Dolby as well as 3D screenings. Disney reported that 3D and premium theaters accounted for 66% of the weekend’s total.
Although 3D films have fallen out of favor with domestic audiences, they remain popular internationally, particularly in China. Indeed, “Avatar” made most of its money outside the United States, with $2.08 billion coming from overseas.