“Avatar: The Sense of Water” would have to become the fourth highest-grossing film in history to be profitable

We know that ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ will hit theaters soon, 13 years after the original ‘Avatar’, but what we still don’t know is the budget that has been invested in making the long-awaited feature film. Recently, James Cameron offered some clues on this issue during an interview with GQ magazine, but hasn’t revealed the exact number yet.

According to IMDb, the budget of ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ is around $250 million. Now, in his interview with GQ, Cameron didn’t reveal the exact data, but said yes “fucking expensive”. The director spoke to executives at Disney and 20th Century Studios, telling them the budget for the “Avatar” sequel represented “the worst business case in the history of cinema”due to its large budget.

Cameron also commented on his estimates for the film, saying this “It has to be the third or fourth highest grossing film ever. This is its threshold. This is its break-even point”, he explained. In order for “Avatar: The Sense of Water” to be profitable, it must enter the top of the highest-grossing films, which Cameron has already achieved with many of his films. The best example of this is ‘Avatar’ which holds the position of the highest grossing film in history, grossing $2.922 million. Follows ‘Avengers: Endgame’ with 2,797 million dollars and, in third position, another of Cameron’s greatest successes: ‘Titanic’, with a gross of 2,201 million dollars. It is not the first time that the director has managed to bring his feature films to the top of the highest grossing films in the history of cinema, so it is not impossible that he will succeed with ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’. But the industry isn’t nearly the same now as it was in 2009, or even 2019, before the pandemic.

According to Cameron’s estimates for the box office, the ‘Avatar’ sequel will break even if it beats the films that are now in fourth and fifth position. Therefore, ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ would be profitable if it can surpass the collection of ‘Star Wars: Episode VII – The Awakening of the Force’, in fourth position with 2.069 million dollars, and ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ , which is in fifth position with a collection of 2,048 million dollars.

What will happen if it is not profitable?

Cameron seems to be not very sure about the profitability and success that ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’ can achieve, despite the fact that two of his films are at the top of the highest grossing films and, one of them, is the original ‘Avatar’, which might give some encouragement to the director who, far from it, has a plan in case the film doesn’t live up to his expectations. In an interview with Total Film, the director explained what decisions he would make if the film didn’t have the success he expected.

“The market might tell us we’ll be done in three months, or we’ll be halfway there, whichever it would mean that we would have completed the story with the third film, but we would not have continued without end. If it’s not profitable… [no seguiríamos]. Now we live in a different world than when I was writing these things, and we have to take into account the two terrible blows that the pandemic and streaming bring. Or maybe we can remind viewers what it’s like to go to the movies. This movie definitely does. The question is, how many people give a fuck?”Cameron explained.