Ever since the lead-up to its December release, media coverage surrounding James Cameron’s Avatar 2 has been mixed at best. Some people love it and think it is a fantastic addition to what is shaping up to be the biggest sci-fi series since Star Wars. Other people hate it, and think the film’s story—much like the last one—is fairly reductive, forced and unmemorable, or at best not particularly moving. At the same time, journalists of all strokes—from business to entertainment—have been feverishly watermarking the film’s box office earnings and chiming in with their own hot takes on the film’s success. Depending on who you talk to, Avatar 2 is the next big blockbuster phenomenon—or it is the latest and greatest high-budget bust.
All of this is said to suggest one thing: Something strange is in the water.
It’s almost as if some reviewers—despite all countervailing evidence—want Avatar 2: The Way of Water to fail. So much so, in fact, that one might even take a guess that entertainment and business journalists are trying to speak this contrived belief into existence. Of course, this narrative stands in stark contrast to the true reality: Avatar 2 has already made 1.4 billion dollars after three weeks in theaters.
Entertainment journalists can cope and seethe over this fact all they want, but $ 1.4 billion dollars in box office revenue after three weeks is a success by every definition of the word.
Of course, plenty of journalists have already thrown cold water on these numbers by quoting Cameron himself, who in a GQ interview stated that Way of Water’s budget was “very fucking [expensive]” and that it would need roughly $2 billion to break even.
Wait. What?
In fact, so many news media outlets have shilled this talking point, that I can see how people would think it were actually true. But this isn’t true at all. It has already been reported by Variety Magazine that Way of Water cost Disney $350 million dollars to produce—which yes, would objectively characterize the film as “very fucking expensive” but also would rank the film as fourth among the most expensive films of all time. Compared to the original Avatar, which cost some $200 million to produce, way of water was 75% more expensive than the original—which probably explains even Cameron’s own sense of sticker shock.
While Avatar 2 is avowedly expensive, the most expensive film of all time isn’t any Avatar movie. It is Pirates of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides—which apparently cost some $410 million to produce, had a $90 million opening, and walked away with $1 billion in global box office revenues. By the numbers, this makes it the second most successful POTC movie, and among the 50 highest-selling movies of all time. Also, despite less-than-stellar critical reviews, On Stranger Tides was broadly considered to be a surprise success for Disney.
So anyone who thinks Avatar 2, despite its holy-shit-sized budget, hasn’t made its money back—and has to make back effectively 9x its cost to be considered profitable—is absolutely kidding themselves. It also shows how far we have devolved in actually being able to measure the success of anything that comes out of Hollywood—even by Hollywood’s preferred metrics. If we are being completely honest, Avatar 2 has already made its money back—and then some. In actuality, Cameron’s comments regarding the profit needs of Avatar 2 are void. They aren’t real. They are tantamount to saying “look at this big expensive thing I built. Gee, I really hope it works out.”
But here’s the thing: we already know how much Avatar 2 costs. We already know that it worked out. It’s people in the media that are merely quoting Cameron, despite considering how much the film costs and how much it has actually made. So where does Cameron’s “$2 billion break even” mouth of bullshit start to factor itself in? Particularly when budgets already cover distribution, marketing, and other factors that go beyond producing the actual film?
I do have a personal theory for why James Cameron set Avatar’s profitability threshold as high as he did. The $2 billion dollar break even isn’t what Avatar needs to actually be considered a monetary success. Rather, when you look at the top 50 highest-selling movies of all time, you will see that the top five are all films that made more than 2 billion dollars at the box office. Interestingly enough, they are: 1. Avatar, 2. Avengers Endgame, 3. Titanic, 4. Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and 5. Avengers: Infinity War.
The reason why this matters is that even though Avatar is now a property of Disney since their purchase of 20th Century Fox, the current tally of who have directed films in the top 5 slots are 2 for James Cameron, 2 for Anthony & Joe Russo, and 1 For J.J. Abrams. If Avatar 2 were to “break-even” at 2 billion dollars, that would mean one of these films would be removed from the top five—and as it stands, the number 5 film that would get bumped off is Avengers Infinity War, which made $2.04 billion dollars, and just so happens to be directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. This would change the tally of who have directed the top five highest-grossing movies of all time to 3 for James Cameron, 1 for the Russo Brothers, and 1 for J.J. Abrams. Assuming Avatar 3 has similar ambitions, the next film to get bumped off would be The Force Awakens, which made $2.06 billion, and would once again change the tally to 4 for James Cameron, and 1 for the Russo Brothers.
As far as that one remaining Russo Brothers film, that movie is Avengers: Endgame, which came out in 2019 and made almost $2.8 billion, making it the second highest-selling movie of all time. But before that point, the second highest-selling movie of all time was James Cameron’s Titanic—which came out in 1997 and was only ever defeated by James Cameron’s Avatar in 2009. If Endgame never came out to such success, James Cameron would have remained one of the most creatively valuable directors of the modern era. Instead, however, he is more or less tied. Thus, the $2 billion watermark for Avatar 2 isn’t a reflection of how much the film actually needs. Rather, it is a reflection of Cameron’s own expectations for Avatar 2’s success—and his own ambitions to be recognized as without a doubt, one of the most profit-generating directors of all time. At the end of the day, this is just raw competition. Maybe even a little revenge.
Will it get there? Only time will tell, but a lot of the flag waving around whether or not Avatar 2: The Way of Water will be profitable, is overblown. Something that many people tend to forget is that the original Avatar box office was around 7 weeks long, and the film had multiple re-releases. All of that is said to say, I think Avatar 2 will exceed its targeted benchmarks in the end.
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