James Cameron’s sequel to Avatar is only weeks away, and early reports indicate it’ll make plenty of cash on its opening weekend, but exactly how much money does Avatar 2 need to recoup its budget?
As reported here by Screen International, Avatar: The Way Of Water is predicted to make anywhere between $150m-$175m on its opening weekend in North America.
These are huge numbers, but in comparison, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever opened to $181m which was behind the first Black Panther that had a massive opening weekend, totalling to $202 million.
GQ recently asked director James Cameron how expensive the budget of the long-awaited sequel was and all Cameron said on the matter was: “Very fucking [expensive].”
Credit: 20th Century Studios
Some reports have said that the budget was somewhere in the $250m range, but this is most likely without any marketing expenses, which quickly add up and hike up that price tag.
Variety recently reported that Avatar: The Way Of Water would need to become the fourth or fifth highest-grossing film of all time to break even and to be considered any kind of success.
The first Avatar is currently still the highest grossing film of all time, with a box office of $2.9 billion. It’s closely followed by Avengers: Endgame ($2.7 million) and Cameron’s own Titanic ($2.1 million).
In fourth and fifth place are Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($2.07 billion) and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.05 billion).
Avatar is still the highest grossing film of all time. Credit: 20th Century Studios
Avatar: The Way Of Water needs to make well over $2 billion, but can such a delayed sequel pull off a hat trick like that? After all, Avatar doesn’t quite have the pull of Star Wars or Marvel and the 3D visuals were still new and shiny in 2009 compared to now when 3D films have disappeared almost completely from the public consciousness. It all comes down to whether the audiences love Avatar enough to flock to the cinemas.
Avatar: The Way Of Water opens December 16
