Avatar 2 Has Defeated Thanos
Avatar: The Way of Water just knocked Avengers: Infinity War out of the top 5 highest grossing films of all time.
It may have taken the entire assembled Avengers team to defeat Thanos in the MCU, but all it took was six weeks for Avatar 2 to defeat him at the box office. According to Variety, James Cameron’s Avatar 2: The Way of Water is continuing to smash records and has just snagged the fifth spot for the highest-grossing movie of all time. So far, earning $2.054 billion, Avatar 2 has surpassed Avengers: Infinity War, which made $2.052 in total after its 2018 release.
This means that Avatar 2’s writer and director, James Cameron, owns three out of the five top spots for highest-grossing films of all time. Cameron’s first film about the blue people of Pandora ranks at the top spot on the chart, having grossed $2.92 billion after its release in 2009. Titanic, another Cameron film, holds third place, with a total gross of $2.19 billion.
While Avatar 2 may have beaten out Infinity War, the MCU still holds second place in the top five highest-grossing films of all time, with Avengers: Endgame, which earned $2.79 billion worldwide. Star Wars Episode VII – The Force Awakens also ranks higher than the Avatar sequel, with gross earnings of $2.07 billion. Although, Star Wars better watch out because Avatar 2 is entering its seventh week in theaters and has a good chance of surpassing the J.J. Abrams sci-fi epic.
In addition to making it into the top five list of highest-grossing films of all time, Avatar 2 has also become the highest-grossing film that was released in the pandemic era. Previously, Spider-Man: No Way Home held firm to this title, with gross earnings of $1.92 billion.
Despite Avatar 2 bringing home the big bucks, the film needed to be hugely successful in order to make up for the $1.5 billion price tag it cost to create. While most films would have been beyond financially successful after having made as much as Avatar 2 has, the executives and creatives behind the Avatar sequel can finally breathe easy as the film is at last making a profit.
While big modern blockbusters tend to cost a lot of money due to expensive graphics, CGI, and stunts, even Endgame didn’t come close to the budget Cameron set for the second in his five-part series. While Endgame was made with a budget of $356 million, Cameron needed the full $1.5 billion budget to create a brand new technology that could film motion capture scenes underwater. Hopefully, Cameron plans to use this expensive tech in his future films, as the success of Avatar 2 is a good indication that the director will be able to complete his vision for the five-part franchise that will cover the story of a multi-generational saga.
Avatar 2: The Way of Water was written by Cameron, who partnered with screenwriters Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. The film stars Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana in a reprise of their roles from the previous film, and Sigourney Weaver, who now plays Kiri, an entirely different character from Dr. Grace Augustine, whom she played in the first feature.
