James Cameron’s $350 million Avatar: Way of the Water opened with a $17 million Thursday night.
That is a respectable number. It means this sequel to the highest worldwide-grossing movie will easily clear $100 to $150 million domestically over the weekend. That’s not chump change. It’s also nothing close to, say, the $60 million Avengers: Endgame opened to on its first Thursday night.
As Deadline points out:
Avatar: The Way of Water‘s Thursday is around that of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 ($17M Thursday night, $56M Friday, $146.5M 3-day), and just under Jurassic World‘s ($18.5M Thursday from 7PM showtimes, $81.9M Friday, $208.8M opening) and that of The Batman ($17.6M Thursday night off 3PM, $56.6M Friday, $134M opening). The Batman ran at 2 hours and 56 minutes, while Avatar: The Way of Water runs at 3 hours and 12 minutes.
But.
And this is a big, Stacy Abrams-sized “but,” Avatar is something entirely different.
The thing about James Cameron, his special sauce, is making movies people want to experience again and again, and in a unique way.
Avatar fans want to sit dead center in front of the biggest screens with their 3-D glasses on and lose themselves in Cameron’s world.
Anyone snickering at Cameron’s $17 million Thursday has forgotten history.
Back in 2009, Avatar opened to a $77 million weekend. On the second weekend, Avatar grossed $76 million. A drop of less than two percent. That never happens. Well, it did happen once before.
Back in 1997, Titanic opened with a $28.6 million weekend. The following weekend it grossed $35.4 million. A jump of 24 percent. That never happens.
In order to get the full experience, what you likely have with Avatar 2 is a lot of people deciding to wait until they can reserve a seat dead in the middle of a high-end theater. And so, if the past is prologue, this phenomenon will go on making tens of millions of dollars every weekend for a long, long time.
Next weekend is Christmas weekend. Then there’s New Year’s weekend… We won’t have a true picture of what’s happening with Avatar’s box office for at least three weeks.
I hated the original Avatar and have no intention of numbing my backside for three-plus hours watching the cartoon sequel. This movie is not for me. I don’t care for fantasy. I don’t care for cartoons. Avatar is both. Life’s too short. Breitbart’s Avatar: Way of the Water review from Paul Bois is a handy reminder that I can re-watch Death Wish II and The Green Berets within those same three hours.
Hey, to each their own. Cameron is pure showman. He’s good for movies. I’m sorry he’s decided to squander the third act of his career using Smurfs to treat human beings like a virus so he can tell fascist lies about the planet being in peril. That’s why the Good Lord invented Blu-rays. I got plenty of humanist movies to watch and plenty of older humanist movies left to discover — movies that explore real people in the real world.
But I will also be watching the box office. I suspect Avatar 2 will be around for a long time and make a ton of money. This $17 million number doesn’t mean anything… yet.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.