Avatar: The Way Of Water Will Make At Least $2.5 Billion Based On Our Data

Avatar: The Way of Water‘s box office run isn’t showing any signs of stopping, but according to our calculations, it’ll bring in at least $2.6 billion at the global box office before it finishes its theatrical run. The original Avatar has been the #1 ranked movie at the box office for more than a decade, so it makes sense that Avatar: The Way of Water would also be a big hit despite a number of doubts about its viability as a 13-year belated sequel; however, its performance so far has already proved the doubters wrong.

It’s hard to know exactly how far Avatar: The Way of Water‘s box office will go before it finishes its run, but following a few patterns set by movies with similar performances, we may be able to achieve a practical estimation of Avatar: The Way of Water‘s total box office run and whether or not it has a chance of becoming the new highest grossing movie of all time. The Avatar sequel has already defied a lot of traditional box office conventions, but there’s still a few solid indicators of how far it could go.

Avatar: The Way of Water Is Outperforming the Top 10 Box Office Average by a LOT

It’s already clear that Avatar: The Way of Water‘s box office is drastically outperforming the average of the top 10 box office earners of all time. As a newly minted member of the top 10, its $134 million opening weekend is the third lowest on the list, ahead of only Titanic ($28.6 million) and the original Avatar ($77 million) – which are both also directed by Cameron. Prior to Avatar: The Way of Water pumping Furious 7 off the list, the average non-Cameron movie in the top 10 made 35 percent of its total domestic haul in its opening weekend, meaning the average multiplier is 2.91.

If Avatar: The Way of Water had a multiplier of 2.91, it’d earn $390 million domestically. With its domestic haul accounting for 30 percent of its global haul, that means a 2.91 multiplier would put it at $1.3 billion, a number it’s already sailed past. In fact, the best multiplier from a non-Cameron film in the top 10 is The Force Awakens‘ 3.78. If Avatar: The Way of Water had a 3.78 multiplier, it would gross $506 million domestically and $1.7 billion globally, which are also numbers it has already sailed past.

Just because it has a better multiplier doesn’t mean it’ll ultimately out-earn all the movies in the top 10, though. But since identifying a multiplier is one of the keys to projecting a movie’s box office potential, it means Avatar: The Way of Water has already outpaced the other movies in the top 10, so their performances won’t help in estimating how much money Avatar: The Way of Water will ultimately make.

Avatar: The Way of Water is Underperforming Compared to James Cameron’s Top Movies

While Avatar: The Way of Water is seriously outperforming the non-Cameron movies in the top 10, it’s not quite hitting the same pace as the original Avatar or Titanic, which, to be fair, are the #1 and #3 ranked all-time box office earners, so it’s admittedly tough competition. Avatar opened to $77 million domestically with a multiplier of 10.19, putting its domestic total at $785.2 million, while only 30 percent of its earnings were made domestically, putting its global total at $2.9 billion. Meanwhile, Titanic‘s $28.6 million opening and 23.02 multiplier give it $659.4 million, which was also only 30 percent of its global total, so it earned $2.2 billion overall.

If Avatar: The Way of Water achieves the original Avatar‘s 10.19 multiplier, it would earn an insane $1.5 billion domestically and $4.9 billion total. Titanic‘s ludicrous 23.02 multiplier is even less imaginable, as it’d put the Avatar sequel at over $3 billion domestically and $10.3 billion globally. There’s no way Avatar: The Way of Water hits those numbers; however, considering its opening weekend was 74 percent more than Avatar and 370 percent more than Titanic, it doesn’t need better legs to surpass their total gross, becoming the top-grossing movie of all time. Still, we can’t use Titanic or Avatar‘s legs on their own to predict Avatar: The Way of Water‘s overall potential.

How Much Money Will Avatar: The Way of Water Make at the Box Office?

Despite not having quite the same legs as Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water‘s box office behavior still bears some key similarities to its predecessor; however, it also has a lot in common with another 2022 movie, and #5 all-time domestic earner: Top Gun: Maverick. Specifically, the daily performance of Avatar: The Way of Water‘s first week had a rate of decay that had far more in common with Top Gun: Maverick; however, over the course of the next two weeks it shifted to more closely resemble the rate of decay of Avatar, with its daily hauls landing between the two movies, with weekends leaning closer to Top Gun: Maverick and weekdays behaving more like Avatar.

If it has the 5.67 multiplier of Top Gun: Maverick (which all signs say it’ll beat down the stretch), it’ll earn $760.3 million domestically. Unlike Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water was released in China and is a big hit overseas, so its domestic box office only accounts for 30 percent of its global total. If that ratio holds, $760.3 million domestically would mean $1.8 billion internationally and a global total of $2.5 billion. This would put Avatar: The Way of Water ahead of Titanic as the new #3 ranked movie of all time at the global box office and the #5 movie domestically behind Avatar.

Of course, those numbers are using Top Gun Maverick‘s multiplier, and so far Avatar: The Way of Water‘s rate of decay suggests it’ll outperform Maverick. If we calculate using a 7.93 multiplier, the midpoint between Avatar and Top Gun: Maverick‘s multipliers, Avatar: The Way of Water‘s domestic total comes to $1.06 billion, the #1 domestic movie of all time and first to cross $1 billion domestically. With domestic earnings tracking at 30 percent of the total, that means its international box office would come to $2.5 billion, and its global total would be $3.5 billion, becoming the new #1 movie of all time and the first ever to cross $3 billion.

A global total of $2.5 to $3.5 billion is a pretty wide range, but considering that range falls within the top three all-time ranking movies at the box office, two of which are already occupied by James Cameron movies, it’s still a pretty exclusive box office club. Ironically, if Avatar: The Way of Water makes it into the top of the list, that would mean three of the top four movies on the all-time list are also the movies with the smallest opening weekend in the top 10, proving massive opening weekend box office hauls aren’t the only way (and certainly not the best way) to become one of the highest grossing movies of all time.