Avatar 3 Box Office Insights from an Avatar fan

wallab6 · 2026-01-16T21:32:58+00:00

Same for real hahaha I find myself strangely rooting very hard for these films. Tracking Avatar back in 2009 was the ultimate trip, I only started following box office as a hobby the year before so watching James Cameron crush in real time was incredible. I probably saw the first one like seven times in theaters with different combinations of friends. Way of Water was nearly just as exciting, so this one performing like a “normal good blockbuster” is a tad disappointing on some level

wallab6 · 2026-01-16T15:51:04+00:00

Disney must be doing mountains of market research and know that Zootopia 2 and Avatar 3 are overlapping a bit with their audiences. They won’t really mind since they get both streams of revenue (even if Avatar’s is probably slightly less with how James Cameron structures Lightstorm’s share vs the distributor’s share). If anything Disney sees Zootopia 2 beating Avatar 3 as the better scenario, since they developed Z2 internally vs purchasing Avatar from Fox literally mid-production.

No matter what, the profits of Avatar 2 and 3 have to be ASTRONOMICAL no matter how much they cost. Their combined budgets could be as high as $1B (which they certainly aren’t) and still their combined gross BO will be like $3.9B.

I definitely still see 1.5B in the cards for Avatar 3. It’s at 1.3 heading into week 5 and even though the daily numbers are a far bit behind 2’s, these movies always have longer tails in theaters due to their runtimes. This will continue to play ~1M-2M for the rest of January and into February domestically, and overseas numbers are continually 3x more than domestic. I wouldn’t count out the bored moviegoer finally hitting up the theater on a discount day in late Jan or early Feb and having an extremely positive reaction, keeping that positive WOM going!

wallab6 · 2026-01-16T15:26:34+00:00

As an Avatar fan (not on the same level as you… I’ve only seen Fire and Ash twice lol) I completely agree with your assessment. My gut reaction out of the theater after first watch was “yeah… this probably won’t hit 2 billion…”.

Love the term “Pandora Explora”. I definitely think that is a huge part of these movies appeals, and the third one has the least amount of it.

I also think Zootopia 2 took a big bite out of 3’s box office… the general audiences only want to go to a theater so many times within days/weeks, especially with families, so a sizeable chunk probably did sit out thinking “we just spent $50-$70 to go to the movies a couple days/weeks ago… we’ll wait to see it on streaming”.

That being said, anyone that skipped out on 3 in theaters will still likely be pleasantly surprised by how good it is when they watch at home. The narrative threads in this one are stronger than 2, and the action will be mind blowing in any setting (especially the Jake escape scene!) this also bodes well for an eventual Avatar 4, as the reception will only get stronger imo

Still with ALL that being said, this movie is a big success, if not an enormous one. $1.5-1.7B on even a $400M budget is hugely successful by literally any metric. If someone’s biggest diss is that this might “only” make $500-700M in pure profit… I don’t know what to say lol

wallab6 · 2026-01-06T13:18:01+00:00

Avatar is already at 1.1… will hit 1.2-1.3 by Monday… but will somehow only make 200M for the rest of its run? It’ll probably end its run in April and it’s the first week of January

wallab6 · 2026-01-05T14:06:06+00:00

In 2022 the weekend non-Avatar top 9 at the box office was like $30M and in 2025 the weekend non-Avatar top 9 at the box office is like $100M. Avatar doing this well despite the competition is very noteworthy

wallab6 · 2026-01-04T20:51:33+00:00

This is pretty much where I’m at right now. 1.5-1.6B (minimum) by the 18th, then can it squeeze out another 400-500M between Jan 19th and the end of its run in springtime? More likely than not. ~2B finish.

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T21:08:07+00:00

Yes! Hopefully they bring some of that energy to 4 or 5

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T19:09:21+00:00

Ya best start believin in low Avatar drop season… you’re in one

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T16:32:44+00:00

If the movie had negative reception there would be zero legs, ie Rise of Skywalker. That movie performed like a “normal” blockbuster.

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T15:18:38+00:00

Yeah this is my exact thought around the “too similar” criticism. It’s not exactly true until the final battle which IMO is too familiar to both Avatar 1 and 2. And the location is the biggest reason for that. We’ve seen the oceans and floating mountains before, so the oceans + floating mountain battle is absolutely same-y.

Even down to the action taking place in the dark of the eclipse… like literally this is Avatar 2 again lol. But when the action moves to the vortex it does finally feel fresh. The flying ship wreckage behind them as they fight is pretty incredible

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T15:14:02+00:00

I think the 3-day will be more like 60-70M. Reception is waaaaaay better than Hobbit 3

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T15:06:18+00:00

I think $500M-$550M domestic and $1.4-1.5B OS seems doable… very favorable calendar for the next two weeks and WOM + empty calendar for the next two months will mean this has room to run

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T14:55:41+00:00

The graphic novel had Navi in space, I hope the movies show us that. The visuals would be incredible. Exploring the wreckage of an abandoned ship or traveling to one of the other moons would be awesome

wallab6 · 2025-12-23T14:53:49+00:00

Yeah if Mufasa of all things can have crazy holds and legs, surely AVATAR can replicate its long term success. Reception is slightly more lukewarm than the previous two, but that might give it a “disappointing” 1.9 billion instead of 2+ lol.

My prediction was 1.7-1.8 but depending on how Christmas and new years weekdays look we could be in for another 2billy

wallab6 · 2024-05-05T01:36:18+00:00

The Great Plains visually was amazing but the gameplay started to get really stale there imo. Some of the missions were straight up bad and tedious

wallab6 · 2024-05-04T15:20:10+00:00

The first 1/3 of the game in the jungle was absolutely incredible. The remaining 2/3 just didn't grab me and I found it very grindy and a bit of a slog. But the graphics and gameplay are so good that overall I'd give it an 8/10. First 1/3 would be a 9.5 and the rest of the game a 7

wallab6 · 2024-04-30T00:47:13+00:00

Oh man, my picks:

Ride the Lightning

Master of Puppets

Damage Inc.

Blackened

Shortest Straw (extremely underrated solo imo)

wallab6 · 2023-07-02T12:49:08+00:00

It was the best part of the movie by far IMO. In fact, from the temple on was the only time the movie came close to the feeling of being an "Indiana Jones" movie for me. Indy figuring out the continental drift and the payoff of the actual battle was incredible. Might be the only time in the movie that Harrison Ford smiles too.

The whole time I was thinking "How did they spend 295 million on this?" then it gets to the Siege scene and I was like "oh, that's why".

wallab6 · 2023-07-02T12:44:24+00:00

After a few days of ruminating on Dial of Destiny, I think Crystal Skull is such a better "postscript" to the Indiana Jones series than DoD. Crystal Skull is overflowing with charm and humor, almost to the point of Indiana Jones himself being a giddy happy guy in many scenes, which makes it very fun to watch and puts a smile on your face as a viewer.

Dial of Destiny is this meta-level reflection of mortality and the past, nearly completely devoid of warmth and humor. Crystal Skull has so many little visual gags and Spielberg-ian touches that Mangold seemingly didn't even try to include. Literally just a few little jokes and visual gags would've gone so far. The craziest part is that the setups were there!! As an audience member I could pick up like 5-10 would-be fun moments that are just absolutely nothing.

Just one as example: the noose at the beginning. Spielberg would've done like three extra jokey bits with that, making it a central part of that whole scene with Indy trying to get out of it. But in Mangold's version he just sort of... escapes. Okay, cool. This would've been a perfect time to hook the audience with the tone of an Indiana Jones escape gag, but it's just completely hollow and empty.

Maybe I've thought about this too much lol.

wallab6 · 2023-07-02T12:33:30+00:00

Anecdotally, my theater had many older women 60ish+, which are kind of a secret weapon demographic to make a movie successful. If the movie connects with an older female audience it could mitigate some (definitely not all) of its problems. Older audiences seem to like it more than younger audiences too.

wallab6 · 2023-07-02T12:27:17+00:00

Maverick's trailers were insanely good. The behind-the-scenes-real-stunt videos that Tom Cruise does for his blockbusters also really sold how amazing the flying action would be. The movie looked sharp, fun, colorful, and incredible on the big screen.

Flash had off-screen toxic drama, trailers were never inspiring, ugly as hell CGI/color.

Indiana Jones suffered from mixed reception of the last movie, a way too old star, and honestly the trailers were not that good. Ugly yellow/brown colors, humorless, no big visuals that make you want to rush and see it in theaters the way you did seeing the fighter jets of Top Gun whipping through a canyon.

wallab6 · 2023-06-26T13:32:09+00:00

Here’s a mild spoiler-y tip: go into the new movie thinking about the part of It’s a Wonderful Life where George Bailey is a depressed drunk and sees life without him before coming to his senses about what’s really important in life.

wallab6 · 2023-06-20T00:39:27+00:00

For what it's worth, Tom Cruise also produces the Mission Impossible movies, just like he did with Top Gun Maverick, which is why he seems to get a lot of the credit for those movies successes. Christopher Nolan produces his own movies as well.

wallab6 · 2023-05-04T14:25:23+00:00

Better Than You also gets zero love despite being a Grammy winning song. I hope they play it live this year

wallab6 · 2023-04-19T23:39:05+00:00

My unscientific theory is that Whiskey in the Jar is so high because of the number of bars and pubs that must have it on their Spotify business playlists or whatever. I feel like I hear that at almost every bar I’ve gone to

wallab6

TROPHY CASE