James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” crossed $760.4 million worldwide after two weekends in theaters, keeping the film in command through the Christmas corridor. The sequel has earned about $217.7 million in North America and $542.7 million overseas, numbers that left it just under a quarter-billion dollars from the $1 billion mark before New Year’s week begins.
International play continues to do the heavy lifting. In China, the film added RMB 166.4 million ($23.4 million) over Dec. 26–28 and reached roughly RMB 700 million ($98.6 million), holding the top spot heading into the holiday-to-holiday gap before Lunar New Year positioning locks in. In South Korea, local trackers reported the film passing 4 million admissions within its first two weeks, a pace that has kept premium formats tight in major multiplex chains.
The film opened earlier in the month with an estimated $347.1 million global start, including $89 million domestic and $258.1 million internationally, according to Disney. Its second weekend showed unusual staying power for a front-loaded tentpole: industry reporting pegged the domestic weekend at about $64 million, a drop of roughly 28% from opening weekend. That type of hold matters because the previous film, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” finished at $2.32 billion worldwide, setting a bar that requires long legs through January and beyond.
The strong run has helped stabilize a year that still fell short of pre-pandemic highs. Comscore’s Paul Dergarabedian described the late-December frame as “a really solid end to a tumultuous year,” as domestic ticket sales approached $8.76 billion with only days left on the calendar. Disney also kept another juggernaut in the marketplace, with “Zootopia 2” pushing past $1.4 billion globally, giving theaters family traffic alongside “Avatar’s” premium-format draw.
