The battle for the bronze on all-time box office charts heats up this weekend, as Avatar: The Way of Water has one last chance to surge ahead of Titanic before that film sets sail again on a 25th anniversary voyage in one week. But unless it overperforms and defies the odds yet again, James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar sequel won’t sink Titanic as the third-highest grossing film in cinema history. At least, not without a re-release of its own.
Official Dolby Cinema poster for “Avatar: The Way of Water”
As of Friday morning, Avatar: The Way of Water needed about $64 million to top Titanic. This weekend, I expect The Way of Water t0 sail toward $8-10 million stateside and around $30+/- million internationally, so conservatively call it $35-40 million, cutting the distance between Avatar 2 and Titanic to somewhere between $20-30 million.
But if The Way of Water exceeds my estimates this weekend (and it’s been defying predictions all along), then the Avatar sequel might be able to narrow that gap to perhaps $20 million. And by the subsequent weekend, there should by my math only be somewhere in the neighborhood of perhaps $10+/- million or so left of Titanic’s box office lead.
Which is where things get tricky, because that’s the same weekend Titanic sets sail again in theaters in remastered 4K HDR 3D for its 25th anniversary. So just as Avatar: The Way of Water is finally about to pass it, Titanic’s box office will take off again.
So even in the event Avatar: The Way of Water has a big enough weekend and strong enough daily holds to actually top Titanic sometime next week, it won’t last long, because Titanic will enjoy bigger daily box office and with the numbers so close between the two films, Titanic has time on its side and will retake the #3 spot.
How long that situation lasts is anybody’s guess — and I think it won’t last long, since I anticipate at least one inevitable Avatar: The Way of Water re-release with extra footage later this year or sometimes in 2024 ahead of Avatar 3’s release — but from where I’m sitting now, it looks like Avatar 2 will not take the #3 spot on all-time box office charts from Titanic unless The Way of Water has far better than anticipated daily and weekend holds over the next several days until Titanic arrives in theaters.
Titanic has already had two prior re-releases, which combine for a total of more than $344 million, most of that from its 2012 3D release. And the film already holds up tremendously well, including its large number of complicated visual effects shots and CGI, so a 4K HDR release with higher frame rate in 3D is going to completely modernize it.
If Titanic manages to find a whole new younger audience who are wowed by the romantic story, the chemistry between its leads, and the eye-popping and heartbreaking tragic spectacle of the sinking, then that combined with its release for Valentine’s Day could help it beat expectations.
It’s a strange situation to be in, where anticipating a greater-than-anticipated outcome for one Cameron film means doubting another Cameron film’s ability to rise above expectations. It’s what you could call a Kobayashi Maru box office scenario — there’s no way to win, because either way you violate the cardinal rule of “Never doubt James Cameron” and you’ll inevitably be guilty of making that mistake one way or the other.
If Avatar: The Way of Water is still destined to eventually pass Titanic, the next film outside of Cameron’s own franchise capable of challenging either of those films will be Avengers: Secret Wars, which hits theaters in 2026.
That film will sport such a huge cast of Marvel characters old and new from across the multiverse it’ll make your head spin watching them team up and/or fight in the biggest MCU crossover event yet. Its predecessor, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty in 2025 will no doubt prove formidable and a massive billion-plus blockbuster, but I don’t think it’s a contender for the $2.2 billion tier of box office.
So by early 2027, the box office charts for the highest grossing films of all time will look something like this:
- Avatar
- Avengers: Endgame
- Avatar: The Way of Water
- Avatar 3
- Avengers: Secret Wars
- Titanic
And that’s without considering where Avatar 4 will land on the chart, but it’ll be somewhere in the top-7 for sure — the question is whether it can top Titanic or whichever of the above six movies are sitting in the #6 spot at the time. But I have no doubt those are the six that will be there when Avatar 4 arrives, assuming it comes out in 2026 as planned.
So the top-7 will also include a fourth Avatar film, and in 2028 comes Avatar 5. All of these films are almost certainly going to exceed $2 billion box office, and we will have a top 10 all-time grossing films list that includes six James Cameron movies (including five Avatar films), three Avengers movies, and one Star Wars movie.
The only question is which Avatar sequels will have had enough re-releases to chart above the other sequels, and how high Avengers: Secret Wars climbs.
Notice, the entire top-10 will become a $2+ billion club by that point. And Disney will own eight of those ten spots. They technically “own” the first Avatar film now, but it wasn’t released by Disney so they can’t claim credit for that one, aside from some of its re-release box office, so maybe give them credit for 8.5 of the top 10 I guess.
Check back soon here for more updates on Avatar: The Way of Water’s historic box office run, Titanic’s 25th anniversary re-release, and more upcoming film releases and box office news.
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