The Way of Watering Down Records
About those ‘Avatar 2’ box office headlines…
The backlash to the backlash against Avatar 2 (aka: The Way of Water) was probably inevitable. The first movie was insanely popular at the time of its release — in no small part, I would argue, because it was exactly right place/right time for the most recent 3D fad — and it’s James Cameron. Without question, one of the greatest directors and visionaries in film of all time. And, of course, someone who is often counted out with his seemingly crazy cinematic undertakings. From Titanic on down. And so when the second Avatar failed to flop, this becomes a great “toldja!” narrative.
But it’s also not nearly as black and white as the box office numbers would suggest. Because the box office numbers are bullshit. Not fully, but they time and time again paint a narrative that is far more rosey for new movies than it actually is. You’d think that in our era of inflation, we would all understand this by now. Alas:
The film is also well-placed to eventually overtake Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ ($659 million) at the domestic box office, although the first ‘Avatar’s’ $750 million lifetime domestic haul (including re-release figures, of course) might be out of reach. Next up, ‘The Way of Water’ will aim to overtake ‘Incredibles 2’s’ $608 million haul, to claim the 12th spot on the all-time list.
You’d read that and think: wow, people said this might flop — instead, it’s likely to be in the top 10 highest grossing films domestically of all time! But the adjusted Box Office numbers paint a different picture. One where Avatar 2 currently sits around the 59th highest grossing film all time domestically. Still great! But it’s behind The Bells of St. Mary’s.
Oh, you’re not familiar with The Bells of St. Mary’s? Well that’s because it was released in 1945. Starring Ingrid Bergman and Bing Crosby, it’s the story of a big city Catholic school, where Father O’Malley and Sister Benedict indulge in friendly rivalry and succeed in extending the school through the gift of a building.
It was not released in 3D. Nor IMAX. It was a different time.
It earned just over $21M at the box office at the time. And that’s the equivalent of $574M in today’s dollars. Well, technically 2021 dollars. We’ll see what actual 2022 inflation did to these numbers soon enough!
Anyway, if Hollywood was at all interested in being honest, they would highlight the number of tickets sold. Not the box office revenue. Thankfully, Box Office Mojo tries to establish that metric. And again, while we don’t have 2022 numbers, if we just use 2021 numbers, Avatar 2 has seemingly sold around 60M tickets. Again, that’s great! But the first Avatar sold around 100M tickets. Avatar 2 is still going, but it’s not going to get close to that number — let alone the 200M tickets (!) Gone with the Wind likely sold to get its $200M Box Office bounty back in 1938.
And actually, Avatar 2’s number is likely even more skewed because a massive portion of their ticket sales were for IMAX or 3D showings. Which are, of course, more expensive. And thus, drive revenue further on fewer tickets sold. So the 60M ticket guesstimate based off of similar adjusted-for-inflation comps is likely too high. How high? It’s hard to say. But if, say, Avatar 2 has “only” sold 50M tickets thus far, it wouldn’t even be in the top 100 films to date in terms of tickets sold. It might be behind House of Wax.
Oh, you’re not familiar with House of Wax? The 1953 horror film about a man who burns down a wax museum with the owner inside — who survives only to become vengeful and murderous. Again, it was a different time. Though this one might have been in 3D! Back when 3D was popular the first time around…
But, but, but international, you might scream. Yes! Again, this is skewing the perception here. Avatar 2, much like Avatar 1, has been hugely successful overseas. More so than any films not in the Fast & the Furious empire, Avatar’s overall numbers are driven by international markets.¹ And yes, its second largest market has been China:
China is still the top market, passing $200M to land at $211.8M through Sunday. It is now the highest grossing studio film of the pandemic era, passing ‘F9’. It has also passed the original release of ‘Avatar’ ($204M). ‘WoW’ will enjoy extended play in the Middle Kingdom, although its strong run will be challenged by the arrival of Chinese New Year on January 22 when several local titles will take up a lot of air.
That’s great for Disney considering that the last few of their largest blockbusters from the likes of Marvel weren’t even allowed to play there.² That’s why you don’t see Spider-Man: No Way Home mentioned here. Or Top Gun: Maverick which was not Disney, but had other, more overt issues for China. Again, all of this is good for Avatar, but bad for comparisons.³
And so I say again, while Avatar 2’s numbers are great, they’re just not as great as the headlines are suggesting. And in fact, in the U.S., thanks to both inflated prices from inflation as well as from IMAX and the like, Avatar 2 has probably sold something like 60% of the tickets that the first Avatar did. And maybe even fewer.
I feel like someone, perhaps someone who owns Twitter, should make a movie, any movie, a joke memelord dank movie, whatever, and then set the ticket price to $1B. And then buy that ticket. Boom, top grossing movie at the domestic box office of all time.
¹ 73% of the first Avatar’s $2.9B gross came from overseas markets. So far, Avatar 2 is tracking at 70%. Again, this is a very high split. And it’s largely thanks to China.
² Though the newly reinstated Bob Iger has seemingly remedied this.
³ And actually, IMAX has exploded in China since the release of the first Avatar — and likely because of it! So that will skew things even further with regard to the box office.
