Excerpt from Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash.
Disney
Disney and James Cameron’s third Avatar film, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” hit theaters Thursday, raking in $12 million in domestic previews.
The second installment of the film series, “The Way of Water,” got off to a better start and grossed $5 million more in its Thursday premiere in 2022. Still, box office analysts expect “Fire and Ash” to gross at least $100 million in its opening weekend in the United States and Canada.
“A lot depends on how Avatar: Fire and Ash performs, and with less than two weeks until the end of the year, the film’s results will play a central role in shaping the annual box office totals,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at Comscore, told CNBC.
International markets, which collected $43.1 million in previews, will fuel global ticket sales.
“The circumstances surrounding each ‘Avatar’ movie have been very different,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “The first was a sleeper phenomenon turned phenomenon at the height of the box office before streaming, the second benefited from pent-up demand for sequels and event status in the post-Covid cinema recovery and the third is now opening up to a more competitive market and new normal.”
The Avatar franchise is a unicorn in Hollywood. Despite widespread success and massive financial success at the box office, the franchise has never quite captured the cultural relevance that “Star Wars” or the Marvel Cinematic Universe – both also owned by Disney – enjoy. Toy sales fizzled and cosplayers sporting intense blue makeup at pop culture fan conventions became rare.
Yet both 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” have surpassed $2 billion at the global box office, with the former film approaching $3 billion in total ticket revenue.
“The constant is the James Cameron factor,” Robbins said. “Audiences expect grand visuals, sounds and storytelling when they purchase tickets to his films. They consistently meet or exceed expectations with lengthy box office runs and exclusive theatrical showcases because they deliver an experience that cannot be replicated at home.”
These strong sales are driven by sales of premium large-format tickets for screens like IMAX and Dolby, as well as 3D screenings, which tend to be more expensive than regular tickets.
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.
Dergarabedian said the franchise has always benefited from moviegoers’ enthusiasm for seeing films in 3D.
“The original ‘Avatar’ film, released in 2009, was a groundbreaking film that reignited widespread interest in 3D cinema, paving the way for later films aimed to capitalize on this trend,” he said.
The international preview sales shared by Disney on Friday did not include China. The company noted that early estimates point to an opening day of about $17.1 million, which would mark the third highest opening day for a Motion Picture Association film since “The Way of Water.”
“While ‘Fire and Ash’ is looking at a smaller box office opening compared to ‘The Way of Water,’ it’s all about the long game,” Robbins said. “Premium screens are blocked for the new year, Cameron’s films are not released first like most Hollywood franchises, and international performance will still far exceed domestic performance.”