Don’t Underestimate Avatar 2: It’s Guaranteed To Be A Box Office Success

Although some people seem ready to write off Avatar 2 before it has even premiered, the movie is guaranteed to be a box office success. The first Avatar broke numerous records upon its release, leading to director James Cameron signing a deal for four sequel films. The first of these planned sequels has followed a similar development pattern to the original Avatar, which could be contributing to the mixed feelings about its release.

James Cameron first began work on the original Avatar in 1994, initially hoping to film it right after Titanic was released in 1997, but had to delay this plan for more than 10 years. Cameron explained that the necessary technology did not yet exist to recreate his vision, and the final product was more than worth the wait. Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning three. Although the plot was far from original—telling a story of the native Na’vi rising up against Earthen colonizers set on mining the land for precious resources—its advancements in filmmaking techniques set the movie apart.

Avatar received an 81% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and remained the highest-grossing movie of all time for more than a decade, but in the years since its premiere, the excitement for the world of Pandora has waned. Some people have even gone so far as to declare that the Avatar movie wasn’t actually that good after all. Yet, despite how many are underestimating the sequel, Avatar 2 has great potential to be another box office success.

Avatar’s Box Office Record Explained

Perhaps more so than anything else, Avatar‘s claim to fame is its impressive box office earnings. After its release in December of 2009, Avatar proceeded to break many box office records, becoming the highest-grossing movie worldwide with $2.789 billion, as well as the highest-grossing film globally in 3D and IMAX formats. Domestically in the United States and Canada, Avatar was the highest-grossing film in its second through seventh weekends, and also topped the charts in countries including China, Romania, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.

Ironically, the previous film to hold the record for highest global movie release was Cameron’s Titanic with $1.84 billion. Avatar maintained this title from 2010 through 2019, at which point Avengers: Endgame became the new number one with $2.797 billion in box office earnings. Then in 2021, Avatar reclaimed its title when the movie was re-released in China. Adjusted for inflation, Avatar is the second highest-grossing movie of all time after Gone with the Wind.

How Avatar Changed The Movie Industry

Cameron intended for Avatar to be more than just a movie, but a one-of-a-kind theater experience. To achieve this, new motion capture animation technologies were developed to enable animators to better capture actors’ facial expressions, along with new systems for lighting large areas and texturing CGI elements. Cameron wanted the CGI to look as realistic as possible, and these advancements granted Avatar a shocking level of realism that changed the future of movies. Avatar also made the 3D format popular again and inspired many other films to release in 3D in the following years; it was even responsible for certain televisions being specifically made to support 3D.

The movie set several trends with its release that other popular franchises like the MCU and Star Wars have followed, such as premiering big projects in the last month of the year. Before Avatar, big releases usually came out over the summer months, and its December premiere likely contributed to some of its success since no other competing films were coming out in the beginning of the following year. Another trend that Avatar started was re-releasing the movie with nine additional minutes of footage, which many other films later copied to add to their box office numbers.

Why Avatar 2 Is Already Being Ridiculed

In the many years between Avatar and Avatar 2, people’s opinions on the franchise have changed. Too much time has gone by between the first and second movies. It’s a large task to try to make audiences care about a project that hasn’t been new or relevant in over a decade, and on top of that, what had made Avatar so special at the time is now commonplace. The advances in CGI, and its other technological innovations, have become standard practices for big movie franchises, so re-watching Avatar no longer gives viewers that same thrill that they would’ve felt the first time watching it in theaters. Coupling that with the long wait makes it harder to maintain interest in an Avatar sequel — especially considering that Avatar‘s ending had no major cliffhangers or unresolved story beats which would’ve kept viewers hooked.

Underestimating Avatar 2 Is A Mistake

James Cameron knows what he’s doing, and has been blessed with a highly successful filmography to prove it. Cameron has produced many projects that have remained beloved works that stand the test of time, including Aliens, Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Titanic. Many critics were skeptical of the first Avatar before it came out, worrying that the Na’vi would look so real it would create an uncanny valley effect, and that Cameron would have wasted the film’s impressive budget on a story that no one cared to see. Those critics were quickly proven wrong, and if the Avatar 2 movie is anything like the first one, it has the potential to be another great success with general audiences.

Just like the original Avatar, Cameron has invented new technologies for Avatar 2 to forever change the way movies are made. Since much of Avatar 2 will take place underwater, Cameron designed underwater motion capture technology that requires the actors to be submerged in a 900,000-gallon tank that mimics ocean currents. Later, visual effects artists have to animate the actors’ faces while they were underwater. Cameron has explained that there is a clear difference between his method and the one traditionally used to film underwater scenes, which suspends actors in the air on wires. While this innovation will likely prove amazing for Avatar 2, it could also spell disaster for another underwater movie. Aquaman 2 releases on the same day in 2022 and utilized traditional mo-cap instead. Hopefully, any comparisons between the two will embrace both of their strengths, and nothing more.

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