Avatar: The Way of Water Makes $134 Million at U.S. Box Office on Opening Weekend: Report

20th Century Studios Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

The opening weekend box office numbers for Avatar's sequel are in!

Avatar: The Way of Water pulled in $134 million at the domestic box office over the weekend, and another $301 million internationally, for a global total of $435 million, according to Variety.

By comparison, the first Avatar movie made around $77 million domestically over its first weekend in theaters back in December 2009, eventually bringing in a total of nearly $750 million domestically and over $2.7 billion worldwide.

Per Variety, Avatar 2 had the fourth-biggest opening weekend of the year. Earlier tracking previously estimated the film would earn $150 million to $175 million domestically and $450 million to $550 million globally, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

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20th Century Studios Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)

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When asked about the budget for Avatar: The Way of Water, director James Cameron — whose budget for the first film was $237 million — told GQ last month that the sequel was "very f---ing" expensive to make.

Cameron, 68, also said he told 20th Century Studios that the film was "the worst business case in movie history," and that it would "have to be the third- or fourth-highest-grossing film in history" to "break even."

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In December 2021, the filmmaker told Entertainment Weekly that, given the state of moviegoing amid the pandemic and beyond, he worried whether the subsequent installments would be able to match Avatar's success.

"The big issue is: Are we going to make any damn money? Big, expensive films have got to make a lot of money," said Cameron, who also directed the box-office giant Titanic, which celebrates its 25th anniversary on Monday. "We're in a new world post-COVID, post-streaming. Maybe those [box office] numbers will never be seen again. Who knows? It's all a big roll of the dice."

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In April 2021, Cameron appeared virtually on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where he spoke about the pressure of helming the highly anticipated follow-up films to the epic 2009 sci-fi blockbuster, which currently ranks as the highest-grossing film of all time.

"I cry. I just sit here at my desk and cry all day long because there's no way," he joked. "It's just too much pressure, dude."

Cameron — who is also directing Avatar 3, which has already wrapped filming — added that he hopes the movies will make fans happy.

"We just try to be true to what people loved about the first film and take it into whole new areas," the Oscar winner explained. "A lot of our scenes are in the ocean so I'm combining things that I love like making Avatar and going into the ocean, I love all that stuff."

The sequel stars Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet, Stephen Lang and more.

Avatar: The Way of Water is in theaters now.