It was merely 10 days ago when Avatar: The Way of Water was being branded as a box office flop after “only” debuting to $134 million domestically, with many instantly writing off James Cameron’s sci-fi sequel as a massive misfire that would never come close to matching the success of its game-changing predecessor.
Funnily enough, a lot of those naysayers have gone awfully quiet as the days progressed, with the spectacular sci-fi sequel refusing to slow down at the box office. In fact, The Way of Water has even been picking up steam, earning more this weekend than it did during the last frame to continue its unstoppable charge towards commercial glory.
In fact, with a running total north of $1.38 billion by the end of today, the watery blockbuster is already one of the 15 highest-grossing releases in the history of cinema, a feat that’s taken less than two weeks to accomplish. Not only that, but by tomorrow The Way of Water will have crossed $1.4 billion to move up to at least 12th on the all-time ranking, and it’s only a couple of days away from surpassing the $1.488 billion of Top Gun: Maverick to become 2022’s top-grossing title.
Beyond that, the Top 10 is a given seeing as Fast & Furious 7 is bringing up the rear with $1.515 billion, with the only real question being how high Avatar 2 can actually fly. It’s basically got the marketplace to itself until Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania lands – which isn’t for another seven weeks – so $2 billion absolutely isn’t out of the question based on the current trajectory.
