Almost 13 years after its initial release, Avatar might hit set a new crazy box office record with its upcoming re-release on 23rd September 2022. In 2009 James Cameron pushed the boundaries of modern film-making with Avatar bringing life to the world of Pandora in a stunning, CGI-laden production that was unparalleled at the time. Popular in both US and Chinese markets, Avatar quickly became a box office success, overtaking James Cameron's own 1997 hit, Titanic, as the highest-grossing film of all time and encouraging Cameron to produce four Avatar sequels, including Avatar: The Way of Water, which is set to release December 2022.
Much like Avatar (2009), Avatar: The Way of Water looks to evolve cinema, pushing contemporary filmmaking technology to its limits. Avatar: The Way of Water has been largely filmed using underwater motion capture inside a 900,000-gallon tank, something completely revolutionary to the industry. While the box office future of Avatar 2 is uncertain, with the time gap between the original and the sequel being problematic, it is relatively certain that, much like its predecessor, the film will be a visual marvel.
Ahead of Avatar 2's release, Avatar (2009) is returning to the big screen, which may well push it into wild new box office territory. Currently standing at $2.847 Billion gross, Avatar only has to earn $153 million in its re-release to be the first film ever to reach $3 Billion worldwide, hitting a crazy box office milestone. Avatar's re-release was announced by Disney at CinemaCon and will be presented with remastered visuals and sound. This re-release, therefore, encourages a re-watch of the movie with its remastered visuals - while there's also a good chance that Disney will add a sneak peek to Avatar: The Way of Water into the re-release plans to draw a bigger crowd.
This isn't the first time Avatar has been re-released, with Cameron's movie also being re-released in 2010 with eight minutes of new footage. Avatar was additionally released again in 2021 in China, earning over $35 million and re-claiming the crown as the highest-grossing film of all time after losing it to Avengers: Endgame in 2019. This bump in sales for Avatar also came during the pandemic era, when many films failed to find an audience, meaning now that regulations are being lessened, Avatar can return even stronger than before. Avatar is also being re-released on September 2022's slate, which doesn't currently have any big titles attached to it, allowing Avatar to an otherwise blockbuster-free market. The success of these two previous re-releases shows that there is still a prominent market for Avatar and its sequels, which have a collective budget of $1 billion.
While Avatar reaching over $150 million with its re-release may seem a stretch, there's a current uptick in cinema sales for blockbusters that point towards its success. Films are once again achieving good box office numbers in the current cinematic landscape, with Spiderman: No Way Home scoring over $1.8 billion and Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness demonstrating strong pre-sales in a post-pandemic market - meaning it seems possible that Avatar could also fare well. Avatar may have been first released over 12 years ago, but it has never become redundant - and as the best-selling film of all time, it seems right that it should be the first film hit the $3 billion at the worldwide box office as well.
