Avatar: The Way of Water just reached $152.2 million at the global IMAX box office, making James Cameron’s long-awaited sequel the fourth-biggest IMAX release of all time. The film now only follows behind its 2009 blockbuster predecessor Avatar as well as 2019’s smash hit Avengers: Endgame and 2015’s Star Wars box office supernova The Force Awakens, respectively.
In its third weekend since the premiere, Disney and Lightstorm’s The Way of Water earned an additional $28.6 million in IMAX global box office. The 4% increase over the last weekend made it the 2nd most profitable increase in box office revenue for the 3rd weekend of an IMAX release. Overall, The Way of Water has been seeing a weekend-to-weekend increase in box office revenue since its global rollout began 19 days ago. The film’s running worldwide total stands at $1.37 billion while its total domestic box office revenue is poised to overtake Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’s $438 million haul.
Down only 6% in revenue since last weekend, the film’s domestic box office numbers increased by $8.4 million and indexing at 13.2% of the weekend gross. With an accumulated revenue of $55.3 million and counting, the IMAX Domestic network accounts for 13.1% of the total-to-date North American box office revenue. International markets bring The Way of the Water further with a remarkable hold of $20.2 million, which is up 9% from the previous weekend. The Imax International cume rises to $96.9 million, making it the 3rd highest International IMAX total ever after only the first Avatar film and Avengers: Endgame.
The Way of Water’s box office revenue in China saw an increase of 19% over last weekend with $6.8m of the International total while the Middle Kingdom cume sat at $35.7 million, which is over 24% of the nationwide total. Now, an impressive total of 18 countries are starting off the new year with the latest Avatar film as its biggest ever IMAX release – the growing list now includes key markets India, Germany, Thailand and South Korea in addition to France, Turkey, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland. The film achieved all-time Top 5 status in 48 countries, sitting at #2 in the United Arab Emirates; #3 in Mexico; #4 in Hong Kong and Denmark; as well as #5 in Sweden. In 60 countries, it made it into the Top 10.
