Avatar: The Way of Water opened to a massive $134 million at the domestic box office, making it James Cameron's best opening weekend box office by far, but it'll still need an industry-defying push to surpass the total box office earnings of the original Avatar and Titanic. Cameron has already made the highest-grossing movie of all time twice with Avatar (which still holds the all-time record) and Titanic (now the third-biggest movie of all time behind Avatar and Avengers: Endgame), but neither movie can credit its opening weekend box office to its overall box-office ranking.
Due to Cameron's past box office wins, Avatar: The Way of Water's box office potential is a topic of intense debate. The movie's budget makes it one of the most expensive movies in history, and Cameron says it'll need to break box office records simply to turn a profit, but given the monstrous success of its predecessor, it's reasonable to expect Avatar: The Way of Water to have the potential to hit similar highs, but it'll take Cameron's most unprecedented box office victory yet for Avatar: The Way of Water to surpass Titanic and Avatar.
Avatar: The Way of Water is James Cameron's Biggest Opening Weekend Box Office Ever
James Cameron rocketed to fame thanks to The Terminator, which was highly profitable despite only earning $78.4 million at the global box office because it was made for a budget of just over $6 million. His budgets have gone up astronomically since, but so have his box office earnings, yet all of James Cameron's movies have seen fairly low opening weekend numbers. Avatar: The Way of Water's $134 million is Cameron's biggest opening weekend yet, out-earning The Terminator ($4 million), Aliens ($10 million), The Abyss ($9.3 million), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (31.8 million), True Lies ($25.9 million), Titanic, ($28.6 million), and Avatar ($77 million).
Titanic and Avatar didn't rise to the top of the all-time box office charts by conventional means. With domestic opening weekend hauls of $28.6 million and $77 million, respectively, Cameron's biggest movies have the two lowest opening weekends among the other top 10 all-time box office earners by far. For comparison, the next biggest opening weekend box office on the list is Furious 7, which opened to $147.1 million, nearly twice as much as Avatar. This means if Avatar: The Way of Water joins that list, its $134 million opening would maintain that trend, it would give Cameron the three lowest opening weekend hauls.
Titanic and Avatar Had Unprecedented Box Office Legs
The fact that Titanic and Avatar opened so much lower than the other movies in the top 10, yet both retained ranks at the top of the list for so long is only possible because of long-tail performance unlike anything else seen with other top box office earners. The movie with the lowest second-weekend drop (excluding Cameron's movies) is Star Wars: The Force Awakens with an impressive 39.8 percent decline. The biggest drop belongs to Spider-Man: No Way Home with a 67.5 percent decrease from its opening weekend. Altogether, the non-Cameron movies in the top 10 have an average second-weekend drop of 55 percent.
Meanwhile, Avatar only dropped 1.8 percent in its second weekend, while Titanic's second-weekend haul actually increased from its opening weekend by 23.8 percent. These numbers aren't only unique among the top 10, but all movies. For comparison, Top Gun: Maverick also had abnormally strong legs and has climbed to the 11th highest-grossing movie of all time, and its second-weekend drop was 28.9 percent from a $126.7 million opening (just shy of Avatar: The Way of Water's 134 million).
Titanic and Avatar Had Multiple Successful Re-Releases
In addition to the long box office runs enjoyed by Titanic and Avatar, both movies have seen a number of highly lucrative re-releases over the years, bolstering their overall box office standing even more. In fact, Avatar stood untouched as the highest-grossing movie of all time by a margin of over half a billion dollars for over a decade (with Titanic in second place, surpassed only by Avatar since its 1997 release) until Avengers: Endgame briefly claimed the #1 spot; however, a 2021 re-release in China added $57.7 million to Avatar's totals, putting it back at the top of the list. In September 2022 Avatar hit theaters again to buffer its lead by an additional $75.7 million.
Titanic's re-release is even more impressive. In 2012, a 3D remaster of the movie earned a astronomical $350.4 million at the global box office. It was only in theaters for nine weeks, but earned enough to make it the 21st highest-grossing movie in 2012, 15 years after its initial release beating movies like The Lorax, Battleship, Wrath of the Titans, and The Bourne Legacy. Titanic earned an additional $7.6 million in another 2017 re-release and is set for a 25th-anniversary re-release in 2023 featuring a 3D remaster with a higher frame rate, similar to what Cameron did with Avatar: The Way of Water and the 2022 remaster of Avatar.
Even Avatar's first box office run included was buffered with a "Special Edition" re-release with added and expanded scenes, extending its 34-week box office run by 12 weeks to 46 weeks overall, adding an additional $44.8 million in revenue. A number of other movies have seen lucrative re-releases, such as Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, which earned $102.7 million from a 3D re-release in 2012 or the animated Lion King, which earned $185.5 from a 2011 3D re-release, but that kind of box office success is rare and Cameron's massive repeat successes with Titanic and Avatar still stand apart.
Avatar 2's $134 million opening is a huge win for Cameron and a great sign for the movie's box office potential, but even with historically strong legs like Titanic and the first Avatar, its initial release window also needs to overcome hundreds of millions in revenue Titanic and Avatar gained through re-releases. Avatar: The Way of Water is more than capable of rising to similar heights, but like other Cameron's movies, its true box office potential won't be realized all at once.
