‘Avatar’ Has Become the First Film to Cross $2.9 Billion at the Global BO!!

Director James Cameron’s Avatar has become the first film in history to pass $2.9 billion at the global box office, thanks to a two-week re-release in over 40 markets ahead of December’s long-awaited sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water. With $18 million domestically and another $39 million from overseas territories, the latest re-release has pushed the film’s global haul to $2.905 billion.

The film’s running domestic total now stands at nearly $780 million — the fourth-largest of all time, behind Spider-Man: No Way Home ($814 million), Avengers: Endgame ($858 million in 2019) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($936 million in 2015). Adjusted for inflation, Avatar’s domestic total stands at $916 million, according to box office tracking website The Numbers.

This is the fourth time that the film has been re-released in theaters, following its record-breaking original run that began in 2009. Avatar wasn’t the biggest film out of the gate, debuting to $77 million in its opening weekend, which was the second-biggest for the month of December at the time, behind I Am Legend. But the science-fiction epic displayed incredible legs over the next few months, eventually overtaking Cameron’s own Titanic to become the biggest film of all time, both domestically and internationally. They say that the franchise has had no cultural impact, but the sustained interest over the last decade proves otherwise.

A special extended edition was released in theaters in 2011, and grossed nearly $45 million worldwide. A smaller re-release targeted at APAC territories took place in 2020, followed by a China-specific re-release in 2021. The film was a major hit in the Middle Kingdom back in 2009, but the pendulum has swung all the way back in the decade since its release. In that decade, China became the world’s largest movie market, attracting major Hollywood films to cater directly to the local audience. But stricter sanctions in the post-pandemic era have limited the number of imports that are allowed to be exhibited there.

Thanks to this latest re-release, Avatar also extended its lead as the biggest film of all time at the global box office. It briefly ceded the top spot to Endgame, before reclaiming it with the China re-release in 2021. Endgame’s global total stands at $2.797 billion. The top five all-time list also includes Titanic ($2.2 billion), The Force Awakens ($2.06 billion) and Avengers: Infinity War ($2.04 billion).

Starring Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez, and Sigourney Weaver, Avatar is set in the 22nd century and tells an epic story about colonization and revolution. The film utilized state-of-the-art visual effects and introduced industry-altering possibilities for 3D exhibition. The sequel will welcome new cast members such as Cliff Curtis, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Kate Winslet, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Cowell, and Vin Diesel. Slated for a December 16 release, The Way of Water was shot simultaneously with Avatar 3; two more sequels have been announced, which means that over the course of the next decade, the original film will get several opportunities to pass $3 billion at the global box office.