The third installment in James Cameron’s “Avatar” series got off to a comparatively slow start at the domestic box office last weekend.
Across 3,800 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” made about $88 million between Thursday and Sunday, according to The New York Times.
The franchise’s second movie, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” made $134 million in the domestic box office during its opening weekend in 2022. In 2009, the first “Avatar” earned $77 million in its debut, or $118 million when adjusted for inflation.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” cost 20th Century Studios around $500 million to make and market. The movie, which has a runtime of three hours and 17 minutes, was directed by James Cameron and introduces a violent clan that lives in Pandora’s volcanic region, per The New York Times.
Critics were initially lukewarm to the film, but the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes reached 91% on Sunday.
The global numbers for ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’
According to CNN, analysts predicted that the movie would break $100 million domestically in its opening weekend.
Though the movie didn’t have the strongest domestic opening, it made an additional $257 million overseas for a global opening total of around $345 million. In China, the film made almost $58 million at the box office.
With the global numbers, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” is the second best opening of any 2025 movie, falling behind “Zootopia 2,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Currently, James Cameron has movies in the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 spots of the list of highest-grossing movies of all time — “Avatar,” “Avatar: Way of Water” and “Titanic.” There is no other director who has three movies in the top 10 list of all-time highest-grossing movies.
“Fire and Ash” was never expected to match the $441.6 million global launch of “The Way of Water” but the decline was worse than expected, especially in the domestic box office, per The Hollywood Reporter.
The third movie is the longest of any “Avatar” movie so far. “The Way of Water” was three hours and 12 minutes and “Avatar” was two hours and 42 minutes long, according to Deadline.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” was the No. 1 movie over the weekend, easily beating out the animated Bible story “David.” The movie from Angel Studios had estimated ticket sales of $22 million.
‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ is expected to make more over the holidays
For end-of-year openings, initial results can be misleading, because movies tend to start slower and then gain stronger numbers through the Christmas and New Year holidays.
“This isn’t one where you can look at opening weekend and get a sense of, ‘Did this movie work or didn’t it?’” said Richard Gelfond, IMAX’s chief executive, per The New York Times. “It’s a question of how long it stays on screens and what repeat business looks like.”
IMAX has installed its technology at 27 new locations over the past three weeks ahead of the movie’s release.
“Exhibitors know that ‘Avatar’ is going to be such a big part of this year’s box office that they wanted to make sure to get open in time,” Gelfond added.
Paul Dergarabedian, the head of marketplace trends at comScore, said: “As an international, especially 3D phenomenon, and in IMAX and the other premium formats, ‘Avatar’ is an event movie,” per CNN.