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According to Variety, Fire and Ash is estimated to post an opening weekend in the range of $90-105 million domestically. The global debut is projected to reach $340-365 million. While those figures are undoubtedly impressive, they are below what Avatar: The Way of Water earned three years ago. The first Avatar sequel opened with $134.1 million domestically and $441.7 million worldwide. Though, Fire and Ash is projected to surpass the original Avatar, which opened with $77 million in the United States and $241.6 million globally.
Can Avatar: Fire and Ash Exceed Box Office Projections?
It perhaps isn’t surprising to see that the Fire and Ash box office estimates are lower than The Way of Water. The word of mouth has not been quite as enthusiastic when compared to the other two Avatar films. Critics still believe Fire and Ash is worth checking out on the big screen (nobody does cinematic spectacle like James Cameron), but the franchise has lost a bit of its novelty. The most common critique in Fire and Ash reviews is that it retreads too much ground in terms of the story, and that sense of familiarity hurts it. That reception could impact people’s decision to go to the theater.
Fire and Ash represents a different kind of box office test for the Avatar franchise. It’s the first time a new installment has arrived relatively quickly after its direct predecessor. The extended wait for The Way of Water became a punchline in some circles, but the film benefited from that big gap. Arriving 13 years after the first Avatar, The Way of Water felt new and exciting; obviously, it wasn’t the same as when the first Avatar came out, but it was still exciting to go back to Pandora after all that time and see how the filmmaking technology had evolved over the years. Fire and Ash premieres just three years later, and it’ll be interesting to see if there’s as big of an appetite for Avatar now.
