“The Approach of Water” grossed practically $900 million on the international field workplace

Avatar: The Way of Water

Courtesy: Disney Co.

Disney and James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water grossed an estimated $56 million in its second weekend in theaters, down 58% from its debut.

A drop in ticket sales is common for blockbuster titles, with most seeing a 50% to 70% drop. This metric, known as the week two drop, is often used as an indicator of whether a film is long lasting at the box office or fizzles out quickly.

Movies falling less than 50% are expected to have solid, long runs, while ticket sales for movies falling above 70% are likely to continue to fall sharply as the film fades from public view.

“The weekend release of ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ puts it right in the zone where it needs to be, as this performance will set the tone for the ongoing box office journey for the film,” said Paul Dergarabedian, Senior Media Analyst at Comscore.

Box office analysts noted that cold winter weather and storms over the Christmas weekend likely resulted in slower domestic ticket sales.

In addition, international ticket sales continue to thrive. The second week drop for markets outside of the US and Canada was 43.9%. It was always expected that “The Way of Water” would generate at least 70% of its box office earnings from international ticket sales, and that’s where Sunday’s split stands.

The Way of Water has generated $855 million in worldwide ticket sales since its December 16 release – $254 million domestically and $601 million internationally. It is currently the fifth-highest-grossing film released in 2022.

priority and Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick currently leads the world at $1.48 billion, followed by Universals Jurassic World: Dominion ($1 billion), Disney and Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness ($952 million), and Universal and Illumination’s Minions: The Rise of Gru ($939 million). million US dollars).

The yield of The Way of Water is less than half of what Cameron said the film needs to generate to be considered profitable. Despite dwindling word of mouth that has focused on stunning visuals dashed by a lackluster plot, the Avatar sequel has room to run at the box office.

The next big blockbuster – Disney and Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – doesn’t hit theaters until February 17, leaving The Way of Water without strong competition at the box office for a long time.

“January lacks a lot of direct competition to the film,” said Shawn Robbins, principal analyst at BoxOffice.com. “At this point, the Avatar sequel could make up any perceived lost ground in terms of meeting long-term expectations, if it can.”

“We live in a world where the craving for instant gratification means that early results are used as the ultimate barometer of a film’s success,” he said. “Realistically, sometimes that makes sense, sometimes it doesn’t. This is one of the latter situations.”

Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal is the distributor of Jurassic World: Dominion and Minions: The Rise of Gru.