‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ Ignites Holiday Box Office With $90 Million Opening

Disney/20th Century/Lightstorm’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” won’t have an opening weekend as big as its 2022 predecessor “The Way of Water,” but is still on course to become Hollywood’s highest grossing film this year as industry projections have it earning a domestic opening of $90 million and a global opening of approximately $340 million.

This comes after the film earned $36.5 million on its opening day — including $12 million from Thursday previews — along with more than $100 million internationally with $17.7 million from China and more than $8 million each from France and Germany.

The domestic opening weekend won’t rank among the top 5 highest domestic openings this year, sliding just below the $92 million opening of “Jurassic World: Rebirth.”

But with the long legs usually offered by the holiday season, “Avatar 3” is expected to earn a higher final domestic total than some of the films with bigger opening weekends this year, including Marvel’s “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” ($117 million OW/$274 million total). A $400 million-plus domestic run should be easily attainable for “Fire and Ash,” along with a global total well north of $1.5 billion that will make it the lowest grossing in the “Avatar” series but the second highest grossing film this year behind the Chinese animated film “Ne Zha 2.”

For the most devoted fans of James Cameron’s saga, “Fire and Ash” was another satisfying “Avatar” film, earning an A on CinemaScore, a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 91%, and a 72% “definite recommend” rating on PostTrak, though the latter is a slip from the 82% “definite recommend” for “The Way of Water.”

In second on the charts this weekend is Angel’s “David,” which earned a $9.6 million opening day and is headed for a studio estimated $25 million opening weekend from 3,118 locations. That would pass the $19.6 million opening of “Sound of Freedom” to become the highest weekend ever for Angel, which recently shortened its name from Angel Studios.

Driven by online word-of-mouth from conservative commentators, faith-based moviegoers and members of the studio’s own subscriber base, the Angel Guild, “David” is expected to use the holiday corridor to pass the $60.2 million domestic run of its Easter animated film “The King of Kings” earlier this year. If it can leg out to a 3x multiple, that would be enough to pass the $72.9 million domestic run of Pixar’s “Elio.”

More to come…

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