With strong and consistent mid-weeks, James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water has crested the $600M mark worldwide. This comes after it rapidly passed $500M global earlier this week, following its $441.6M opening weekend. The current worldwide total through Wednesday is $609.7M including $426.8M from the international box office.
The offshore cume lifts Way of Water to the No. 5 spot for a Hollywood title on the 2022 overseas chart, having now surpassed Thor: Love and Thunder and The Batman.
On Tuesday, the 20th Century Studios/Disney sequel added $40.5M from overseas markets, and on Wednesday, a further $39.5M.
Domestically, as Anthony has reported, Way of Water scored the 2nd biggest Wednesday of 2022.
International midweeks are landing at an average 15% of the opening weekend (removing troubled China from the equation, that rises to 17%). Looking at markets that bowed early last week, France’s Wednesday was up 64% this week (last Wednesday had a World Cup semi-final), Germany was also up, while Korea and Italy were down about 30%.
As we’re heading into a holiday weekend that sees Christmas Eve fall on a Saturday, and Christmas Day on a Sunday, we’ll see a significantly lighter second frame — but from December 26-30, midweeks are again expected to be robust.
In all, the Top 10 overseas markets through Wednesday are China ($70.5M), France ($37M), Korea ($32.1M), India ($26.5M), Germany ($26.1M), UK ($21.6M), Mexico ($19.4M), Australia ($15.8M), Italy ($13.8M) and Brazil ($12.9M).
Not included in the totals above are Thursday’s figures out of China and Korea. In the former, an added estimated $3.8M brings the total through today to $74.5M. In the latter, a $2.17M estimated Thursday lifts Way of Water to $34.7M.