‘Avatar 2’ Tops ‘Spider-Man’ Sequel As 6th Highest Grossing Film

It’s a historic week at the box office for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is Avatar: The Way of Water will inevitably sail past $2 billion at the box office this upcoming weekend. But first, James Cameron’s blockbuster sequel had a different record to break on the all-time charts. Today The Avatar sequel replaces Marvel Studio’s Spider-Man: No Way Home as the 6th highest grossing film in history.

Last weekend saw Avatar: The Way of Water topping Spider-Man: No Way Home’s fifth weekend take, $40 million to $24+ million, if you need additional indications of how well Cameron’s sci-fi epic is playing and how much further it might go.

Since opening last month for the 2022 Christmas holiday season, Avatar: The Way of Water has steadily and quickly climbed up the box office charts, from $500 million to $1 billion, from $1 billion to $1.5 billion, and now to the cusp of $2 billion with a $1.9+ billion gross.

Before its release, I was already bullish on Avatar: The Way of Water and said I felt it would probably top $2 billion. Indeed, I said even if we suffered a huge global Covid surge that closed down most business again at the same time we also had U.S. and European political turmoil and civil unrest after the 2022 elections and expanding war in Europe, I’d still bet on the movie topping at least $1 billion as a worst-case scenario.

After it opened to $435 million, expectations cooled somewhat — too much among most entertainment press and cinephile discussions, and even slightly in my own estimations. While I remained bullish on Avatar 2’s box office prospects compared to the predictions of many other journalists and analysts, even I started to think for a while that a $1.8 billion final cume was more likely than $2 billion.

Lucky for me, I snapped out of that delusion faster than most others did.

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Spider-Man: No Way Home is the highest-grossing solo MCU superhero film, although in fairness it’s a Sony-Marvel co-production released by Sony, not exclusively Marvel Studios movie. It sits between two sets of Avengers movies in the all-time box office rankings — 2012’s The Avengers and 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron below it at $1.5 billion and $1.4 billion respectively, and Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame above it with respective $2.048 billion and $2.797 billion. And it’s one of only two solo Marvel superhero movies to breach the all-time top 20, the other being 2018’s Black Panther with $1.3 billion.

Avatar: The Way of Water is the 13th movie from (or, in Spider-Man’s case, partly from) Disney’s family of studios to nab a spot in the top 20 all-time earners. The other seven films — Avatar, Titanic, Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Furious 7, Top Gun: Maverick, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 — are from Fox, Universal, Paramount, and Warner Bros, with Universal having three and Paramount having two, leaving Fox and Warner with one apiece.

That’s some heavy domination by Disney, with more than half of their 13 all-time grossers releasing during the past five years — and five of them released in the previous three years alone. And with Avatar: The Way of Water joining the elite tier for the studio, that gives Disney five films in the top 20 that are not part of either Marvel or Star Wars franchises.

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As noted, by the end of the coming weekend, Avatar: The Way of Water will top $2 billion. But it will remain in the #6 spot vacated by Spider-Man: No Way Home until it can surpass Avengers: Infinity War’s $2.048 billion, which should be sometime by the start of the subsequent weekend or midway through it. At which point it moves into fifth place and sets its sights on the final two movies with box office tallies Avatar 2 has a good chance of topping before it ends its first theatrical run — Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens at $2.069 billion and Titanic at $2.19 billion.

Since I think Avatar: The Way of Water will end up grossing $2.2-2.3 billion, that would’ve gotten it to the #3 spot on the list of highest grossing films in history, if all of the above numbers remained as-is. However, Titanic is setting sail into theaters for its 25th anniversary with a remastered 4K HDR 3D release that will surely send it well past $2.2 billion and maybe into $2.3+ billion territory. In that case, Avatar: The Way of Water will have to finish well on the highest end of potential in order to still have a shot at the all-time #3 position.

Be sure to check back here soon for more box office updates and award season coverage, dear readers. And meanwhile, if you head out to theaters for your first or repeat viewings of Avatar: The Way of Water, please remember to mask up — you aren’t just protecting yourself from the latest Covid variants and flu, you’re helping protect others around you who might be immunocompromised or otherwise at higher risk of adverse outcomes (including death).