Walt Disney Co’s Avatar: The Way of Water is on pace to become the top-selling movie released last year after leading the box office for a third straight weekend.
The science-fiction film generated US$63.4 million in ticket sales in the US over the first three days of New Year’s weekend, a Disney estimate showed on Sunday.
It has made US$1.38 billion worldwide since its release on Dec. 16.
Photo: AP
That puts Disney’s film on track to surpass the US$1.49 billion in sales for Paramount Global’s Top Gun: Maverick, the current highest-grossing film released last year.
Both studios have some bragging rights. The Tom Cruise fighter-jet movie made the most money at US theaters within the year, while The Way of Water tops it internationally.
The weekend performance demonstrates the unusual staying power of the Avatar franchise. The Way of Water did not even have one of the top three US openings of last year. Its 2009 predecessor, Avatar, also started out slowly, but ultimately sold a record US$2.92 billion of tickets.
Visual effects, and the use of novel 3D-viewing technologies, have been a selling point for both movies. Avatar films incorporate the real-life movements of actors playing members of an indigenous Navi humanoid species into on-screen animation. The use of the tech helped make the movies some of the most expensive ever produced.
The Way of Water is probably on course to at least break even financially, an accomplishment given its high production costs. That bodes well for a series of sequels Disney has planned for the franchise through 2028.
The Burbank, California, entertainment giant acquired the rights to the James Cameron films as part of a US$71 billion acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019.
Despite several strong performances theaters still had a bad year, compared with pre-pandemic times.
North American box office sales reached about US$7.46 billion last year, far less than the US$11.4 billion sales figure from 2019, a Comscore estimate showed.
Part of the decline is because COVID-19 left movie release schedules in such disarray they could take years to untangle. Audiences have also been conditioned to watch new films at home.
The business might recover further this year with installments of major franchises, including Indiana Jones and Transformers, planned.
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