AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH Ignites Early Tracking With A Massive $110 Million Opening Projection
The year might be winding down, but the box office still has one giant swing left. The final major release of 2025 is almost here, and early numbers are signaling another massive cinematic event for James Cameron.
The long awaited threequel Avatar: Fire and Ash has officially landed on tracking, and with three weekends to go before its December 19th release, the projections are already lighting up the industry.
Tracking is currently estimating a $110 million domestic opening weekend for Avatar: Fire and Ash, with a range between $100 million and $130 million.
That kind of number doesn’t happen unless the film is drawing every quadrant, and that’s exactly what seems to be happening. It’s leaning more heavily toward men in first choice polling, but women are said to be still showing up strong enough to support a major launch.
While the film is currently behind the early first choice numbers of Avatar: The Way of Water, which opened to $134.1 million, that doesn’t appear to be a concern. Avatar films perform differently than your typical Marvel style rollout.
They aren’t built around Easter eggs or opening night urgency. These movies are proven to be events that audiences want to experience on the biggest screens with the best 3D and premium formats. People plan for Avatar.
When Avatar: The Way of Water landed on tracking in 2022, early data pointed to a massive $150 million to $175 million start. It ultimately debuted lower. Tracking at the time had been inflated by comparisons to Spider-Man: No Way Home, which had dropped the second biggest domestic opening ever at $260.1 million the year before, right behind Avengers: Endgame.
Regardless, The Way of Water launching at $134 million was impressive, especially when you consider it arrived 13 years after the first film’s $77 million opening, and in hindsight, that debut should be seen as the upper limit for what Fire and Ash can expect on its own first weekend.
Yet Cameron’s sequel still crushed the long game. The Way of Water pulled off an incredible 5x multiple domestically, ending with $688.4 million in the US and Canada even while navigating a brutal winter storm during its second weekend. Globally it soared to $2.34 billion, becoming the third highest grossing movie in history.
During the recent press tour for The Way of Water, Cameron explained that he won’t commit to a fourth Avatar film yet, despite already having some footage shot. He wants to see how the third entry performs first because these movies carry enormous production costs.
As Cameron put it, Avatar: The Way of Water “was the most profitable Hollywood movie of 2022 earning well over half billion in the black.”
The numbers back up why the financial stakes are so high. The original Avatar earned an astounding 10x multiple on its $77 million opening and finished with $785.2 million domestically. Together, the first two movies in the franchise have pulled in $5.26 billion worldwide.
Cameron now holds an unmatched position in box office history. He owns the first (Avatar at $2.92 billion), third (Avatar: The Way of Water), and fourth (Titanic at $2.26 billion) highest grossing films ever made. No other filmmaker dominates the top ten the way he does.
If the early projections are any indication, Cameron is gearing up to close out 2025 with another massive spectacle, and audiences around the world are ready to dive back into Pandora one more time.