Fire and Ash’ box office $88 million domestic opening

opening weekend Disney’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” felt more like boiling than flame.

That’s the expectation for the full theatrical release of the third installment of James Cameron’s Avatar series.

“Fire and Ashes” grossed $88 million in its first three days in theaters, well below analysts’ expectations for a debut price of between $110 million and $125 million. By comparison, 2022’s “Avatar: The Path of Water” earned $134 million in the same three-day period.

The film collected $257 million internationally, bringing the film’s worldwide opening to an estimated $345 million.

“Fire and Ashes” faced some theatrical drawbacks, namely its running time of more than three hours. There was also less pent-up demand compared to “The Way of Water,” which was released more than a decade after the first Avatar movie. Some box office analysts and critics have noted that “Fire and Ashes” has less technological innovation than its predecessors, which has been a driving factor in past ticket sales.

According to EntTelligence’s data, approximately 5.2 million domestic moviegoers went to see “Fire and Ashes”; That’s a huge drop from the 8.7 million who braved the opening weekend of “The Way of Water” in 2022.

Yet the Avatar series has never been front-loaded at the box office. The first film, 2009’s “Avatar,” grossed just $77 million in its opening weekend domestically but remained in theaters for almost a year. When the movie was released, it earned $2.7 billion worldwide. According to Comscore’s data, the value of the film reached $2.9 billion with re-releases.

“The Way of Water” was released in theaters for 23 weeks and grossed $2.3 billion worldwide.

“With less than two weeks left in the box office year, the pressure for ‘Avatar: Fire And Ash’ to be a smash hit was intense, and although the film fell slightly short of pre-release opening weekend projections, the Avatar movies have always been known for marathon box office runs,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of market trends at Comscore.

Also helping the franchise at the box office are premium large-format ticket sales. The Avatar movies are over-indexed with 3D releases as well as more expensive experiential displays like IMAX and Dolby. Disney reported that 3D and premium theaters accounted for 66% of the weekend’s total.

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; 2.08 billion dollars came from abroad.