Avatar: The Way of Water has been cleaning up at the box office ever since it hit theaters last month. But given the film’s Pandora-sized budget, which reportedly falls somewhere between $350 million and $460 million, breaking even seemed like an uphill battle. James Cameron previously claimed that his long-awaited sequel needed to make around $2 billion to actually turn a profit. Fortunately for Cameron, it sounds like moviegoers won’t let him down. During a recent interview, Cameron shared that The Way of Water will cross this benchmark by the end of the week, effectively guaranteeing the franchise’s survival.
Cameron broke the news while appearing on the latest episode of Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace? (via Variety). So far, The Way of Water has made over $1.5 billion at the box office, notably surpassing the runaway success of Top Gun: Maverick to become the highest-grossing movie of 2022. But now that the film is almost officially out of the red, Cameron can safely turn his attention to the next three Avatar installments that are currently in the works.
“It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we’ll easily pass our break even in the next few days,” said Cameron. “So it looks like I can’t wiggle out of this and I’m gonna have to do these other sequels. I know what I’m going to be doing the next six or seven years.”
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Cameron has already made considerable progress on the next two Avatar films. In fact, The Way of Water was filmed back-to-back with Avatar 3, both of which wrapped in 2020. Earlier this year, production finally started on Avatar 4, and the first act has already been shot.
“The point is we’re going to be okay,” continued Cameron. “I’m sure that we’ll have a discussion soon with with the top folks at Disney about the game plan going forward for Avatar 3, which is already in the can – we’ve already captured and photographed the whole film so we’re in extended post-production to do all that CG magic. And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can. We’ve begun a franchise at this point. We’ve begun a saga that can now play out over multiple films.”
Avatar: The Way of Water is now playing in theaters everywhere.
Are you glad to hear the film is on track to break even? Let us know in the comment section below!
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