Avatar: Fire and Ash tops global box office with $345M debut

"Avatar: Fire and Ash" opened with $345 million in worldwide sales, according to studio estimates Sunday, notching the second-best global debut of the year and potentially putting James Cameron on course to set more blockbuster records yet.

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Sixteen years into the “Avatar” saga, Pandora is still abundant in box-office riches. “Fire and Ash,” the third film in Cameron’s science-fiction franchise, launched with $88 million domestically and $257 million internationally. The only movie to open bigger in 2025 was “Zootopia 2” ($497.2 million over three days). In the coming weeks, “Fire and Ash” will benefit from the highly lucrative holiday moviegoing corridor.

But there was a tad less fanfare to this “Avatar” film, coming three years after “Avatar: The Way of Water.” That film launched in 2022 with a massive $435 million globally and $134 million in North America. Domestically, “Fire and Ash” fell a hefty 35 percent from the previous installment. Reviews for “Fire and Ash” were also more mixed, scoring a series-low 68 percent “fresh” score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yet those quibbles are only a product of the lofty standards of “Avatar.” The first two films rank among the three biggest box-office hits of all time. To reach those heights, the “Avatar” films have depended on legs more than huge openings.

“Avatar” (2009), opened with $77 million domestically but held the top spot for seven weeks. It ultimately grossed $2.92 billion worldwide. “The Way of Water” also had a strong run, eventually tallying $2.3 billion globally.

"The openings are not what the 'Avatar' movies are about," said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers. "It's what they do after they open that makes them the no. 2 and no. 3 biggest films of all time."