“Avatar: The Way of Water” has sailed past the $1.1 billion mark at the global box office and is now set to overtake “Top Gun: Maverick” to become the highest-grossing international release of 2022.
The film added a further $70.4 million to its global haul on Wednesday, including $20.4 million added domestically – the best Wednesday haul of the year. That brings its domestic total to $337.8 million and International total to $762.8 million.
Internationally “Top Gun: Maverick” racked up $770 million – a number “Avatar” will pass within the next day. Globally, “Top Gun: Maverick” is still the champ at the moment with $1.5 billion, and it’s expected the new “Avatar” won’t beat the $718.8 million domestic haul of ‘Maverick’.
The success comes as filmmaker James Cameron is currently in post-production on a third “Avatar” film and has fourth and fifth ones to shoot and finish, which will keep him busy for the next six years or so.
That’s a lot of time, and Cameron, age 68, only has so many years left before he may retire. Speaking with Empire magazine, he was asked if he felt bad that due to his “Avatar” commitments he was not able to do other film projects he wanted to do. Cameron said he had two thoughts about that:
“The first is that the world of Avatar is so sprawling that I can tell most of the stories I want to tell within it and try many of the stylistic techniques that I hope to explore. And secondly, yes… our time as artists is finite. I will always mourn some of the stories that I don’t get to make.”
Cameron added that he has no issue with other directors tackling some of his ideas:
“[I’ve found] great satisfaction when other directors want to explore some of my ideas, like Kathryn Bigelow did with Strange Days, and Robert Rodriguez did when I passed him the baton on Alita: Battle Angel. I look forward to more collaborations in the future with directors I admire.”
Cameron previously hinted earlier this year that he has other film ideas beyond three more “Avatar” movies and is developing them.
“Avatar: The Way of Water” is in cinemas now.
