The Way of Water has cracked the top 10 highest grossing movies of all time. Image: Disney
In Avatar: The Way of Water, the people of Earth hunt the Na’vi from Pandora as part of a larger plan to take over their planet. But here on the real Earth, the Na’vi have officially won the war.
As of Wednesday, James Cameron’s sequel had grossed $1.51 billion worldwide, surpassing Top Gun: Maverick’s $1.49 billion haul earlier this year. This means that Avatar: The Last Airbender is now the highest-grossing film of 2022 worldwide. Internally, it’s a different story; Maverick still sits comfortably atop the mountain, over $260 million ahead. ( Maverick stands at $718 million domestically, Way of Water was at $454 million as of Wednesday). To put it into perspective, this is a complete The Amazing Spider-Man.
But Avatar was never just a domestic franchise. The original film, which earned a still-impressive $785 million domestically (good for fourth all-time), earned more than triple that internationally for a global cume of nearly $3 billion. So that it surpassed Maverick, a film with very American roots, internationally isn’t really a surprise. It’s surprising that it happened so quickly. The Road to Water has been in theaters for a total of about three weeks. There are still weeks, possibly months, of playing in theaters and increasing those numbers. We are looking at a real box office giant.
So where can it go from here? Passing Top Gun: Maverick at the global box office puts it at #10 of all time. All-time number nine, The Avengers, is only dollars ahead, so he should beat him in hours if he hasn’t already. So, we’re looking at Waterway to be the ninth highest-grossing film of all time. Eighth, 2019’s The Lion King is next on the list with $1.66 billion, and number seven, Jurassic World , is right at the top with $1.67 billion. The next huge milestone is number six, which is Spider-Man: No Way Home. That’s $1.91 billion, and if The Way of Water hits that, $2 billion isn’t that far behind. Only five films have ever grossed over $2 billion: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Titanic and Avatar. And of those five, two were directed by James Cameron.
And yes, as someone always brings it up, none of this is adjusted for inflation.
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