Avatar 2 is about to take Top Gun: Maverick’s 2022 box office crown

James Cameron’s huge Avatar gamble has paid off in an immense way following its latest box office feat.

The film, which was released in December, is a follow-up to the 2009 original, which is the highest-grossing film of all time.

Cameron has made no secret of the fact that he needed the film, titled Avatar: The Way of Water, to be a huge success – especially considering there are four sequels in the works.

While the director claimed that the film needed to become the fifth highest-grossing film of all time to break even, Variety reported that he was embellishing and that the release would begin to make a profit once it hit an international gross of $1.5bn.

It’s double good news for the director, then – not only is the film set to hit $1.5bn globally on Wednesday (4 January) but, after just 21 days, it has become the 12th biggest film of all time.

Minus Wednesday’s profits, the film’s box office total sits at $1.482.5m.

With Wednesday’s profits added, the film will sail past Top Gun: Maverick, which was the biggest film of 2022. That feat will now be Avatar 2’s.

If the film’s success continues, which it seems likely to do, the film will carry on up the list of biggest films ever to become one of the five highest-grossing releases of all time.

This means that Cameron’s films would account for three of the top five alongside the first Avatar and Titanic (1997).