Despite Disney/Marvel Studios’ Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania soaking up the global box office with $225M start, the studio’s sister 20th Century Studios/Lightstorm James Cameron sequel Avatar: The Way of Water refuses to stop, despite the fact that the former title has all the premium tickets. Avatar: The Way of Water‘s running worldwide total now stands at $2.243 billion, making it the third highest movie ever, sending Cameron’s own Titanic (which recently had a re-release) to fourth with $2.242 billion.
Overseas, Avatar 2 has made $1.586 billion to its domestic take of $658.4M. The Presidents Day weekend made Avatar 2 the ninth highest movie ever at the domestic box office, overtaking Universal’s 2015 Jurassic World‘s $653.4M. However, Avatar 2 in this go-round, especially this late in its theatrical release at ten weekends looks unlikely to beat Cameron’s Titanic stateside (No. 8 on the domestic list) which counts a lifetime total through this weekend of $672.1M. In sum, Avatar 2 is going to need a theatrical re-release if it’s going to best Titanic stateside.
This past weekend in the U.S./Canada, Avatar 2 ranked second behind Ant-Man 3 with $6.3M and a 4-day of $7.5M. The movie had to give up its Dolby screens to Universal’s Knock at the Cabin three weekends ago, but had to cede all of its premium ticket venues to Disney’s own Marvel Studios threequel.
Avatar 2 made another $10.7M in 52 markets over the weekend for a global total of $16.8M over three days, $18.2M including Presidents Day.
China remains the highest grossing offshore territory with $243.8M. Europe has grossed an estimated $759M to date (72% from 3D/premium formats), while Asia-Pacific has grossed an estimated $646M to date (75% 3D/premium formats) and Latin America has grossed an estimated $181M to date (54% 3D/prem formats).
The Cameron directed sequel, which counts four Oscar noms including Best Picture, is the highest grossing movie of all-time in France ($147.9M), Germany ($138M), Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Rep, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Turkey, UAE, Cambodia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Colombia and Puerto Rico. It’s also the highest-grossing MPA title of all-time in India ($59M), Korea ($107.5M), Bosnia, Serbia and Sri Lanka.