There was a time long before, or just at the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, when movies from a range of directors had the privilege of being the highest-grossing movies of each and every year, unlike the hegemony of the MCU. One standout director was Avatar director James Cameron, who isn’t far from making a comeback again.
A lot of you who are reading this right now may remember that name very fondly regardless of whether you were a kid or an adult back then. Cameron’s undisputable ability to make box office hits was held in the same repute that Kevin Feige’s MCU is currently holding, but the former may fall short this time around.
Projected Opening Weekend For James Cameron’s Avatar Sequel Is Confusingly Low
Let’s have a little recap on how well James Cameron’s movies have held up till today in terms of being big names in the list of highest-grossing movies, starting with his most famous and highest-grossing box-office hit, Avatar.
As everyone knows Avatar was a game changer for its time in 2009, going past every movie released that year to reach the top of the box-office charts by the end of the year. It currently stands strong as the highest-grossing movie of all time, with worldwide earnings of $2,922,917,914, and its sequel is arriving shortly at the end of this month.
Cameron’s also had various other hits, such as the Leonardo DiCaprio romance-drama Titanic, which is also the third-highest-grossing movie of all time with current worldwide earnings of $2,187,463,944. So yeah, it’s pretty safe to say that the 68-year-old director can rake in those sweet commercial numbers!
As of today, the Aliens director is set to make his big return as the father of box-office hits with the much-awaited sequel to Avatar with Avatar: The Way of Water. But during his absence came a new player in the game, Kevin Feige’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has been spurting out one box-office hit movie after another ever since Iron Man in 2008.
There’s surely bound to be some tough competition for Cameron this time around with the MCU still running strong after so many years. However, it seems like he might fall off to the mighty Feige and the MCU, at least in the opening weekend.
Analyzing the opening weekend of the three most successful movie releases from the MCU that came out this year is a must in this context. According to The Numbers, Thor: Love and Thunder had an impressive opening weekend, earning $144,165,107, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever did even better in the same regard, achieving more with a figure of $181,339,761.
However, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness topped off a successful year for the MCU, becoming its highest-grossing movie of 2022 with an opening weekend of $187,420,998, and currently has earned $411,331,607 at the domestic box office.
Now if you look at the projected opening weekend for Avatar: The Way of Water according to Box Office Pro, it’s supposed to rake in $135,000,000, which falls short of even Thor: Love and Thunder!
To be fair, Cameron had this coming. It’s not that easy to beat the mighty MCU, but only time will tell.
Fans Positive That Avatar 2 Will Eventually Pick Up Its Pace
Despite those numbers, it can be safe to bet that James Cameron‘s highly anticipated sequel to his most successful movie won’t be having any troubles later on after its release considering the fact that he’s already a big name in the Hollywood industry.
His fans are already pretty positive that Avatar: The Way of Water won’t be having any problems despite what the numbers say-
Well considering the original film had 77 million dollar opening weekend this is pretty good and before anyone questions why did this film do so well if that low of a opening weekend it’s because it’s second weekend had a 1.8 percent drop with 75 million dollars
— jack guichard 420 (@420Guichard) November 18, 2022
A means a lot more to the world than America! –
It’s making way more overseas
— trey (@Kingeos0) November 18, 2022
This fan believes –
135M is way too low,ita gonna do far better than this projection.
— Anshu Aggarwal (@anshu_aggarwal9) November 18, 2022
China has a lot of sci-fi fans too, and has tons of theaters, so why not! –
James Cameron is fingire crossing for that China release
— Mike Hudson Perry (Multifandom era) (@MikeHudsonPerry) November 18, 2022
Good things take time-
it'll be much bigger than that for sure
— Javohir Hasanovich (@IamJavohirJojo) November 18, 2022
We’ll be getting Avatar: The Way of Water on 16 December 2022, and what awaits us is a stopwatch running on full power from every Marvel fan who will be looking closely at the movie’s box-office earnings.
Source: Twitter
