James Cameron wants to put this film on the list of the highest grossing films of all time. He already did it in 2009 with ‘Avatar’, which managed to become the highest-grossing film of all time with 2,743 million dollars (another 157 million will have to be added for this year’s re-releases, for a total of 2,900).

Now, 13 years later, Avatar 2: The Way of Water faces a big challenge not to disappoint.

More than a decade ago, Cameron, who won over audiences with “Titanic” in 1997, took a surprising gamble. The “boom” of rich colors, original stories and 3D movies has made “Avatar” popular with audiences.

However, as you can imagine, the filmmaker, who is also a philanthropist, did not anticipate such repercussions. With a gross of around $2.201 billion and one of the highest grossing films in the history of cinema with its love story between Jack and Rose.

Not only is that figure staggering in itself, but it is even more staggering considering the budget. Cameron only needed $237 million to make the film.

With the arrival of the second part of Pandora’s story, the filmmaker has two possible outcomes: a resounding success or a huge failure at the box office.

How much does Avatar: The Way of Water have to box office to be profitable?

Cameron himself admitted in an interview with GQ that for the new film, it would have to be the third or fourth highest grossing film of all time. That is his threshold. In addition, it is understood that the story was budgeted between $300 million and $400 million, although there are no official figures.

The highest-grossing films of all time

As of today, the highest grossing film in cinema history has $2.9 billion which is Avatar. That figure drops to $2.743 billion when only considering the months of release, being narrowly beaten by ‘Avengers: Endgame’ managed to gross $2.797 billion in 2019.

Beyond that, the other top grossing films remain the aforementioned ‘Titanic’ (approximately $2.201 billion on a budget of $200 million), ‘Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens’ (approximately $2069 million), on a budget of $245 million), ‘Avengers 3: Infinity War’ (approximately $2.048 million, on a budget of $356 million), and ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ (approximately $1.916 million, on a budget of $200 million).

Therefore, according to Cameron’s targets, “Avatar 2” should be able to gross about $2.069 billion to be profitable.

They estimate that it could gross $525 million in one weekend

The director is starting from good data to achieve this goal. Analysts estimate that the film could gross around $525 million in one weekend, with $175 million in the United States and $350 million in the rest of the world.

In addition, in Spain alone, the film will be shown in 416 cinemas, on 1,983 screens, and 150,000 tickets have been sold prior to its release. Seventy percent of them in 3D.