‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ crosses $1 billion after 18 days
Baku, January 5, AZERTAC
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is blazing past $1 billion at the global box office after 18 days of release, according to Variety.
Those ticket sales include $306 million domestically and $777.1 million internationally for a grand total of $1.083 billion.
The third installment has surpassed the billion-dollar benchmark a bit slower than its predecessor, 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which joined the $1 billion club after a brisk 14 days, and 2009’s “Avatar,” which achieved the milestone after 17 days. Of course, those films remained major draws on the big screen — topping the box office for seven consecutive weekends — and eventually became two of the biggest movies in history. The original Na’vi adventure earned $2.9 billion while the sequel generated $2.3 billion.
Whether “Avatar 3” has the staying power to surpass $2 billion in worldwide revenues remains a question mark. Reaching the coveted achievement will rely heavily on international audiences, which were largely responsible for powering the first two films to stratospheric heights. (The first “Avatar” earned a mammoth $2.1 billion from just overseas markets, while the sequel generated a massive $1.65 billion from foreign territories.) For the third entry, top earning overseas territories include China with $138 million, France with $81 million, Germany with $64 million and Korea with $44 million.
“Avatar: Fire and Ash” is Disney’s third release of 2025 to cross the $1 billion mark, following “Lilo & Stitch” and “Zootopia 2.” (For context, none of its rivals have fielded a single billion-dollar film since 2023.) These movies have capped off a banner year for the studio, which has generated more than $6.58 billion in global revenues for the first time since COVID. Disney is the biggest studio in terms of market share, having outgrossed its rivals by at least $2 billion at the box office.
“Fire and Ash” centers on Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their family as they take on a new fiery foe. This is director James Cameron‘s fourth film to cross the billion-dollar mark, including “Titanic.” Cameron, the only filmmaker in history with three $2 billion blockbusters to his name, had planned a total of five films in the Pandora-set series. However, he has since joked that he’ll hold a press conference to determine whether he’ll move ahead with “Avatar 4” and “Avatar 5” — or if the franchise will conclude with the third adventure.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves [with ‘Avatar 4’] because, first of all, we’ve got to make some money with this one,” Cameron told Variety ahead of opening weekend for “Fire and Ash.” “Every time we go out, we have to prove this crazy business-case yet again.”
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