Avatar: The Way Of Water Rises Past Star Wars: The Force Awakens To Become Fourth-Biggest Movie Of All Time
Like a certain droid from "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," or a certain song by Limp Bizkit, "Avatar: The Way of Water" just keeps rollin'. James Cameron's epic sci-fi sequel has remained comfortably in the No. 1 spot at the box office since its mid-December release, and will remain there in its seventh weekend at the box office. With no competition at the blockbuster level until "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" arrives in mid-February, "The Way of Water" has been steadily clambering up the ranks of the highest grossing movies of all time to join its fellow children of Cameron: "Titanic" (at No. 3) and the original "Avatar" (at No. 1).
Now, the "Avatar" sequel is just one step behind Cameron's other big water-themed movie. Variety reports that "The Way of Water" has overtaken "The Force Awakens" ($2.064 billion) to claim fourth place with a running total of $2.075 billion at the worldwide box office. The lead will only widen over the coming weekend, as The Hollywood Reporter estimates it will add another $15 million at the domestic box office, a relatively small drop from last weekend's $20.1 million.
It should be noted that box office rankings are not typically adjusted for inflation, which is why lists of the highest-grossing movies of all time are made up almost entirely of films released in the 21st century. New movies breaking records and overtaking older releases is an inevitability. But thanks to various re-releases over the years, "Titanic" (released in 1997) has clung to the top five with a current total of $2.194 billion. "Avatar: The Way of Water" may well overtake it, but it will have a much steeper climb to steal the No. 2 spot from "Avengers: Endgame," which grossed a staggering $2.799 billion.
Avatar: The Way of Water has officially passed James Cameron's test
Between being in production for 13 years and being shot back to back with "Avatar 3" (and part of "Avatar 4"), calculating how much "Avatar: The Way of Water" needed to make in order to break even was complicated (even more so than usual when it comes to Hollywood accounting). Insiders speculated it was in the black once it hit around $1.4 billion, but James Cameron himself set the bar higher.
Describing the movie as "very f***ing [expensive]", Cameron said that when a movie costs this much to make, "You have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That's your threshold. That's your break even."
Cameron already acknowledged a while back that "Avatar: The Way of Water" was successful enough to get the sequels greenlit and keep him locked into making blue alien movies "for the next six or seven years." Still, there aren't many directors on the planet who could set the minimum goal of making the fourth biggest movie of all time, and then actually do it.