Fire and Ash’ tops $12 million in Thursday previews
A still from Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” movie.
Disney
Disney and James Cameron’s third Avatar movie, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” opened in theaters Thursday and grossed $12 million in early domestic previews.
The second installment of the film franchise, “The Way of Water,” is off to a better start, grossing $5 million more in its Thursday preview in 2022. Still, box office analysts expect “Fire and Ashes” to gross at least $100 million in its opening weekend in the United States and Canada.
“A lot depends on the performance of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ and with less than two weeks left in the year, the film’s results will play a pivotal role in shaping annual box office totals,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at Comscore, told CNBC.
International markets will drive global ticket sales, having collected $43.1 million in preview screenings.
“The circumstances surrounding each ‘Avatar’ movie were quite different,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “The first became a sleeper phenomenon in the pre-release blockbuster era, the second benefited from pent-up demand for sequels and eventized in cinema’s post-Covid recovery, and the third is now opening in a more competitive and new normal market.”
The Avatar franchise is a unicorn in Hollywood. Despite receiving widespread acclaim at the box office and major financial success, the series has never quite achieved the cultural relevance that “Star Wars” or the Marvel Cinematic Universe (both owned by Disney) have enjoyed. Toy sales fizzled, and cosplayers wearing dark blue makeup at pop culture fan conventions became fewer and fewer.
However, both 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” surpassed $2 billion at the global box office, with the first film’s total ticket revenues approaching $3 billion.
“The constant is the James Cameron factor,” Robbins said. “When audiences buy tickets to his films, they expect spectacular visuals, sound and storytelling. With long runways at the box office and special theater windows, they consistently meet or exceed expectations because they deliver an experience that cannot be replicated at home.”
These strong sales are driven by sales of premium large-format tickets for screens like IMAX and Dolby, as well as 3D shows that are more expensive than regular tickets.
Although 3D films have fallen out of favor with local audiences, they remain popular internationally, especially in China. Indeed, “Avatar” made most of its money outside the United States, with $2.08 billion coming from abroad.
Dergarabedian said the series has consistently capitalized on moviegoers’ excitement about watching movies in 3D.
“The original ‘Avatar,’ released in 2009, was a groundbreaking film that reignited interest in 3D cinema and set the stage for subsequent films that would capitalize on this trend,” he said.
China was not included in the international preview sales Disney shared on Friday. The company noted that initial estimates point to an opening day of around $17.1 million; This would be the third-highest opening day for a Motion Picture Association film since “The Way of Water.”
“With ‘Fire and Ashes’ looking at a diminished box office opening compared to ‘The Way of Water,’ it’s all about the long game,” Robbins said. “Premium screens are locked into the new year, Cameron’s movies aren’t front-loaded like most Hollywood releases, and international performance will again far outweigh domestic.”
