Avatar: Fire and Ash has launched to a huge $345 million at the global box office, which is enough to secure the second largest opening weekend of 2025 so far. But it’s down significantly on its predecessor Avatar: The Way of Water, and now there are questions over whether James Cameron will get to realize his vision and make Avatar 4 and 5.
Disney’s Avatar: Fire and Ash opened to $88 million in North American theaters, but as with previous Avatar movies, the big money came internationally, with $257 million. In total, Avatar: Fire and Ash is behind only Disney’s own Zootopia 2, which earned just shy of half a billion dollars over the same launch period.
Avatar: Fire and Ash’s opening is down significantly on that of its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water, which saw a huge $435 million during its launch weekend in 2022. But an encouraging sign came from China, where $57.6 million came in for Fire and Ash, ever so slightly above The Way of Water’s opening haul three years ago.
The question now is whether Avatar: Fire and Ash will enjoy the staying power at theaters its predecessors did. The Avatar films tend to start strong but then pick up steam over the holidays, pulling in hundreds of millions week on week. Will Avatar: Fire and Ash do the same?
The special effects-heavy Avatar films cost a huge amount of money to produce, but they have historically made billions of dollars at the box office. Avatar remains the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), and has earned a staggering $2.9 billion across several theatrical runs. (Avengers: Endgame overtook Avatar for a brief period, before Avatar then stole its crown back via a fresh re-release.) Avatar: The Way of Water earned $2.3 billion, meanwhile, cementing it as the third-highest grossing film of all time — just ahead of Cameron’s own Titanic, which floats on $2.2 billion.
The pressure is on Avatar 3 to deliver for Disney so creator James Cameron can release Avatar 4 and 5 over the next six years. Avatar 4 is down for release on December 21, 2029, with Avatar 5 due out December 19, 2031. Cameron, now 71, would be close to 80 years old by the time it all wraps up.
But Cameron has sounded words of caution recently. Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron admitted he was feeling nervous about Avatar: Fire and Ash’s box office performance, and was mindful of the “forces” working against theatrical releases in 2025. There’s the potential for “sequelitis,” Cameron noted. “People tend to dismiss sequels unless it’s the third Lord of the Rings film and you want to see what happens to everybody, which in my mind this is — this is the culmination of a story arc, but that may not be how the public sees it.” And there’s the “one-two punch” of streaming and Covid, which means fewer people are going to the movies — 75% of the number in 2019, Cameron suggested.
When pressed on how much Avatar: Fire and Ash cost to make, Cameron wouldn’t be drawn into divulging a figure, only suggesting it was a lot of money, and so the movie will have to make a lot of money to turn a profit.
“It is one metric f**k ton of money, which means we have to make two metric f**k tons of money to make a profit,” he said. “I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?”
And on that point, Cameron admitted he was “absolutely” ready to walk away from Avatar if Fire and Ash flops.
“I’ve been in Avatar land for 20 years,” he said. “Actually 30 years because I wrote it in ‘95, but I wasn’t working continuously on it for those first 10 years. Yeah, absolutely, sure. If this is where it ends, cool.”
But what about open story threads?
“There’s one open thread. I’ll write a book!” Cameron responded.
But Disney reportedly has a plan to encourage repeat viewings of Avatar: Fire and Ash in theaters — and it involves four different Avengers: Doomsday trailers.
Photo by CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
