This weekend, moviegoers fled into director James Cameron’s sci-fi world, propelling the third installment of the “Avatar” franchise to an estimated $88 million at theaters in the United States and Canada.
The result was well shy of analysts’ predictions that the movie might collect upwards of $100 million in its opening. The original “Avatar” movie earned $115 million, adjusted for inflation, when it was first released in 2009. The second movie, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” came out in 2022 and took in $134 million domestically.
But “Avatar: Fire and Ash” also grossed about $257 million outside the United States, for a global total of roughly $345 million. It is certain to be a holiday and January draw for moviegoers, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore.
“‘Avatar’ is an event movie, particularly as an international, 3D phenomenon and in IMAX and the other premium formats,” he said.
avatar: fire and ash (2025) dir. james cameron pic.twitter.com/SDjch7mp4E
— screencaps (@screenscaps) December 19, 2025
The film’s cost of about $400 million could hurt a potential fourth film being made if it doesn’t see the financial gains that have come with other more popular live-action mediums, Cameron told CNN’s Jason Carroll last week. “Fire and Ash’s” success in the next few weeks will decide the fate of the franchise, according to Cameron.
Attendance at movie theaters has sagged in recent years as streaming services have mushroomed and Americans cut back on discretionary spending. But blockbuster films like the “Avatar” series — known for being high-tech and cutting-edge — can also sometimes coax audience members who prefer the full, big screen, Imax or 3D experience to theaters.
“The theater is my sanctuary as a filmmaker,” Cameron told CNN. “It’s never going to go away. But I think it could drop to a point where the sort of movies that I like to make, and I like to see, are going to be unsustainable. They won’t be economically viable. We’re “very close to that now.”
Hollywood failed to fully recover from the pandemic this year, despite a strong December. The domestic box office is 22.5 percent below the gross from this time in 2019, up just 1.3 percent compared with last year and has collected $8.37 billion to date, according to Comscore.
Theaters, analysts and movie studios were ecstatic in 2023 when the release of “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” revived hope that the theater going experience might still prosper. The box office had crossed $9 billion that year, the only time it has since the Covid-19 pandemic.
While people continue to attend the movies, it “remains to be seen” whether the box office will hit $9 billion again, Dergarabedian said.
“The box office, despite all the ups and downs this year, is going to turn out just fine here, and feed into what I believe will be the biggest post-pandemic year in 2026,” he said.
This weekend was helped by Angel Studios’ “David.” The family-friendly biblical animation adventure film earned $22 million and was No.
Lionsgate Films’ psychological thriller “The Housemaid” took in $19 million domestically to rank third for the weekend. Family audiences continued turning out for the theaters to see Paramount Pictures’ “The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants,” which took in $16 million.
Those three openers could have been massive hits had they opened in a slow month like October, Boxoffice Pro’s editorial director, Daniel Loria said. Rather, they “complement” each other and give time for the films to draw their intended crowds over the holidays, he said.
A24′s “Marty Supreme,” Focus Features’ “Song Sung Blue” and Sony Pictures’ “Anaconda” will all open wide next weekend.
The awards contender “Marty Supreme” arrived in six theaters this weekend. It ranked No. 9 in total with $875,000 in domestic earnings.
At the same time, “Avatar: Fire and Ash” could keep drawing big numbers.
Attendance is up in theaters. In August, 33 percent of moviegoers — people who see at least six movies a year — were classified as habitual moviegoers, an increase from the rate of 25 percent last year, according to Cinema United.
The increase in frequent moviegoers has come as theater owners have spent $1.5 billion on upgrades in the last year, according to Cinema United. And investments in premium large screens that show movies like “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” as well as deluxe seats and concessions, helped encourage Gen Zers into theaters.
By courting those young audiences, with family-friendly movies and adaptations like Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” and Universal’s “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2,” has always been tough, said Shawn Robbins, an analyst at Box Office Theory. Warner Bros. Discovery is the corporate parent of CNN.
“It is a little bit different in today’s world what it takes to get people out into the theaters and I do think finally, studios are starting to laser focus on what that can be in making that really work for the generations now and coming down the pike,” Robbins said.
