Avatar: The Way of Water, the sequel to the original James Cameron-directed Avatar movie, has reportedly cost over $1 billion in expenses. After 12 years in development since the first movie’s release in 2009, the movie finally arrived in theaters under Disney and took the world by storm. The sequel set a box office record and became the third-highest-grossing movie of all time, beating out Avengers: Infinity War. The incredible visual effects used in the film’s insane runtime weren’t cheap either, as the movie was made with a budget of $350 to $400 million. Now new data has revealed Avatar 2’s expenses.
Deadline revealed that Avatar 2 was the most successful release of last year, even with over $1 billion in expenses. The expenses included production costs of $400 million, prints and ads for $400 million, video costs of $100 million, residuals of $40 million, interest and overheads of $72 million, and participation of $300 million. James Cameron reportedly took home at least $95 million from the flick in a deal that was “backend-heavy with bonuses for crossing certain box office thresholds.”
Disney is now developing Avatar 3, 4, and 5, with production around “70%” done on the third installment, The Seed Bearer. The expenses increase for The Way of Water may come down to its massive 12-year development, with Avatar 3 set for 2024. Perhaps the next movie will be a slightly cheaper affair. Even though the movie broke box office records, Cameron said the movie was “very f***ing expensive” and that it could be “the worst business case in movie history.” He indicated that the sequel would “have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” to “break even,” which would amount to around $2 billion gross.
Even Variety’s box office analysts indicated The Way of Water may need to take home around $1.5 billion to make its money back. However, Deadline’s data revealed the total expenses, and therefore the threshold to turn a profit, was $1.09 billion, around $400 million less. Avatar: The Way of Water took home $2.32 billion worldwide, including $683 million domestically, $1.39 billion internationally, and $246 million from China, making it the third-highest-grossing movie ever and surpassing Avengers: Infinity War. Once the theaters took their cuts, Disney took home $1.27 billion from The Way of Water’s theatrical run before generating a further $150 million from home entertainment sales and $200 million from television and streaming deals.
Among the other most expensive movies from Deadline’s “2022 Most Valuable Blockbuster” series, Top Gun: Maverick cost $753.9 million, Thor: Love and Thunder cost $547 million, Jurassic World: Dominion cost $520.3 million, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness cost $496 million, and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever cost $491 million. For comparison purposes, Avatar 2 more than doubled the cost of the average MCU blockbuster. Avatar 2’s success can be attributed to its long development and impressive visual effects. It remains to be seen how the upcoming Avatar movies will perform at the box office, but they will likely still have massive budgets.
Fans can watch Avatar: The Way of Water on digital platforms now, with the Blu-ray and Disney+ release dates yet to be announced.
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