What will be highest grossing film released in 2025? Record-breaking Chinese animation "Ne Zha 2" is currently in pole position, hundreds of millions of dollars ahead of "Lilo & Stitch" and the still-in-theaters "Zootopia 2" ("Zootropolis 2" in the UK). But you'd be unwise to bet against a movie that arrives on the big screen this week, the third instalment in a franchise with a proven track record of blowing box office expectations out of the water.
2009's "Avatar" and 2022 sequel "Avatar: The Way of Water" are currently the highest and third-highest grossing movies of all time, sandwiching "Avengers: Endgame" at the top of the all-time list. Although they're not built on decades-old IP, James Cameron's sci-fi actioners have both made more money than every single "Star Wars" movie, and all-but-one of the MCU's 37 big-screen outings to date. And with accepted Hollywood wisdom suggesting that films don't gain access to the $2 billion club unless a sizeable number of viewers are heading back for repeat viewings, the "Avatar"s have clearly found the secret sauce — the, if you will, box office unobtanium — that everybody else in Hollywood would happily travel to Alpha Centauri to find.
But — and here's the thing — I just don't get it. I appreciate the technical achievement, of course, and Cameron still has few equals when it comes to directing action scenes — you can take the man out of "Terminator" and "Aliens", but you can't take "Terminator" and "Aliens" out of the man.
The stories, however, are extremely derivative, populated by characters who don't always share the 3D qualities of the visuals. Although they're both decent (if overlong) movies, I've never felt a desire to watch them again right away, as I have with "The Force Awakens", "Avengers: Endgame" and many other blockbusters. I'm also unconvinced that either — particularly the inferior "The Way of Water" — deserved a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
In fact, when it comes to "Avatar"'s multi-billion-dollar success story, the only thing I can be certain about is that normal rules don't apply.
Which got me thinking: did I always feel this way, or have I just jumped on some post-release bandwagon?
I first saw the original "Avatar" at a preview screening in 2009, before anyone had any idea that its box office take would leave the then-record holder, Cameron's own "Titanic", trailing in its wake.
The review I wrote for SFX magazine said that, "The dense forests of Pandora look so real that you feel like someone's smashed a rectangular hole through the cinema wall and opened a window onto another planet." Indeed, I was full of praise for the game-changing 3D visuals, but lukewarm about the "predictable and derivative" story. I gave the film 4.5 stars out of 5, with the caveat that the experience was so geared towards the multiplex that the film would "automatically get a star docked as soon as it arrives on the small screen".
I stand by every word, to the extent that I didn't watch the original film again for over a decade, keen not to sully the experience by watching on TV. I wasn't alone among critics, either, seeing as the original movie currently stands at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer. It's a good but not great score — the second lowest (ahead of "Jurassic World") in the all-time box-office top 10, and well behind previous Cameron classics "The Terminator", "Aliens", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "Titanic".
"Avatar" wouldn't be the first franchise where critics and audiences have disagreed, and we're hardly in "Transformers" territory, where box office takings have often seemed inversely proportional to the quality of the movies. Nonetheless, it's hard to think of another recent Hollywood property where the theatrical experience has been so integral to the sales pitch.
Just as Tom Cruise has done his best to pack out multiplexes by risking life and limb in the name of "Missions: Impossible", Cameron has weaponized the prospect of 3D visuals light years ahead of his competitors. I still remember watching a preview for "The Way of Water" where the illusion of depth was so convincing that I wondered if it was raining indoors.
"Avatar" didn't quite kickstart a stereoscopic revolution — though it did prompt thousands of cinemas to get 3D-ready — but how many other films have convinced their audience that watching "flat" would diminish the experience? With 3D tickets generally selling at a premium price, this certainly didn't harm those box office receipts.
The "wow" factor has arguably stretched "Avatar"'s appeal, drawing in viewers who wouldn't otherwise contemplate spending three hours in the company of big blue aliens.
But it's outside the US that "Avatar" has really come into its own. According to a YouGov survey, a whopping 48% of urban consumers in India and 33% in China saw "The Way of Water" in theaters — that's compared to just 13% in the UK and just 11% in the US. Both are markets where "Star Wars", for example, has historically struggled to make an impact — while "The Force Awakens" made almost half its money in the US, barely a quarter of "Avatar"'s revenue was earned at home.
Most remarkably, the two "Avatar" movies to date have achieved their success without a vast shared universe — or spin-off shows on Disney+ — to support them. In an era when saturating the market with "product" has been the strategy for pretty much every major franchise in Hollywood, they're something of an outlier. That "The Way of Water" should arrive a whole 13 years after its predecessor and still sail past $2 billion defies all conventional logic, especially given the global box office's well-documented struggles in a post-pandemic world.
Any movie that can help fight the good fight for theaters against streaming feels like a good thing, as does a franchise that keeps its focus firmly on the big screen. Even so, I don't think "Avatar" is a saga I'm ever going to love.
Part of me still dreams that Cameron might one day back and make something more tactile again, a throwback to the glory days of "Aliens" and the "Terminator"s — it's telling that the thing I liked most in "The Way of Water" was the Colonial Marines-esque military hardware. But maybe yearning for a director to make films as he did three decades ago is a bit like going to see Radiohead and complaining the set wasn't dominated by songs from "The Bends" and "OK Computer".
Perhaps I should just accept that I'll never truly understand why the "Avatar" films are so successful, and admire them for best-in-class technical qualities. Besides, there is one thing I do know — as anyone in Hollywood will tell you, you should never, ever bet against James Cameron.
"Avatar: Fire & Ash" hits theaters worldwide on December 19, 2025. "Avatar" and "Avatar: The Way of Water" are available on Disney+.
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