2.8 billion is how much Avatar has made in theaters.
3.7 billion adjusted for inflation.
Avatar, which came out in 2009 is one of the highest grossing movies of all time, with the only exception being Gone With The Wind.
After 13 years, a trailer for the sequel, which was originally planned for a release in 2015 has come out.
The big question now is could it make money comparable to the original release?
First up, the challenges Avatar has going in.
The obvious one being the number of 13 years, as the gap between the first movie and the sequel.
To put some perspective on that.
- 9 years was the gap between the final Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit.
- 10 years was how long it took to make the entire Harry Potter franchise.
- 11 years was the time between the first Iron Man and Avengers Endgame.
Avatar took 13 years for a sequel, which makes it one of the biggest gaps for movies between franchises, with the only comparable one being Star Wars, which waited 16 years between the conclusion of the original trilogy and the beginning of the prequels.
Which enters another big problem, which was the franchise not doing much as a franchise.
Star Wars in the 80s and 90s spent 16 years building a franchise with books, games, cartoons and more, all to keep it fresh for an eventual return.
Avatar hasn’t had that same level of merchandise, where there’s no books, shows or much merchandise.
The biggest expense was Disney building an Avatar land at Disney Land, which cost the company 500 million dollars.
Which was a big investment, looking at a comparison being Universal, which spent 220 million dollars on Harry Potter land.
This is impressive for Avatar, but there’s really no evidence it increased ticket sales for Disney, compared to Harry Potter, which is estimated to have increased ticket sales at Universal by 20%.
This puts a challenge for Avatar, with the question of if people forgot or not.
That’s the first challenge, but the second and bigger challenge for it making money is China.
Avatar made 202 million dollars in China, which at the time was the biggest US release ever there, which was also about 7% of the total box office.
Which the important thing is also looking at the growth in China.
910 million dollars was the Chinese box office in 2009.
7.4 billion was that same market in 2019.
A 713% increase in ten years for the Chinese box office.
It also became a large part of Disney’s revenue model for the box office, where China was over 20% of the revenue for the most recent Avengers movie.
Holding that growth, Avatar 2 could be the first American movie to make a billion dollars in China, while also being the first to make a billion dollars in an overseas box office.
The issue though is it’ll likely be banned in China.
Disney in 2021 failed to get any movies into the Chinese box office and it seems like China is set to eventually ban all American media.
Just last week it was reported China didn’t allow the recent Spider-Man in, because they wanted them to edit the Statue of Liberty out of the movie.
That factor alone will make it tough for Avatar to make money comparable with the first film.
The other problem is COVID.
The global box office in 2009 was 31.8 billion dollars.
In 2021, it was 21 billion.
Which to be clear, more duel releases existed with theaters and streaming, while also fewer movies came out, but ultimately, COVID did have some impact.
This doesn’t seem to be as big of a factor in 2022 and if Spider-Man No Way Home could make 1.9 billion in 2021 on a December release, Avatar shouldn’t have a huge problem there.
Final thing is the market for 3D.
80% of Avatar’s box office was for ticket sales to see it in 3D.
Avatar began the modern 3D trend, but that’s fallen gradually overtime.
3D was huge from 2010-2012, where it was reported 30% of tickets sold were in 3D.
That didn’t hold overtime though, where that market has gradually shrunk to 14% and many believe it’ll be under 10% by 2025.
That might hurt Avatar 2, where the initial craze was the 3D, but now it feels less likely to matter.
Final thoughts.
This is going to make a lot of money.
Even if it doesn’t make as much as the original, I think it’ll be the highest grossing movie of 2022. After watching the trailer and seeing the quality, it looks like animation wise, it was worth a 13 year wait.
The China factor will likely be the thing which prevents it from breaking its 2009 number, but it’ll still be huge.