\n\tJames Cameron\u2019s third installment in his groundbreaking Avatar series minted green at multiplexes around the globe over the weekend as the year-end holiday box office commenced in earnest.<\/p>\n
\n\tAvatar: Fire And Ash, from 20th Century and Disney, amassed $345 million in its worldwide opening, the second-best global opening of any 2025 Hollywood title behind fellow Disney Thanksgiving tentpole Zootopia 2. And it\u2019s coming in almost No. 1 everywhere, even winning over tough markets including much of Asia and Latin America, where sci-fi can struggle. One surprise \u2014 it came in on the lower end of expectations in North America with $88 million.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe male-skewing film is earning strong audience exits \u2014 including an A CinemaScore, in line with the two previous films \u2014 despite its running time of more than three and a quarter hours. Disney insiders say this puts the threequel in the driver\u2019s seat.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe first\u00a0Avatar\u00a0movie was all but lambasted when it opened to $77 million in 2009, considering its cost, but the angst soon ended as the film picked up momentum on its way to becoming the top-grossing film of all time at the worldwide\u00a0box office<\/a>\u00a0with an astounding $2.97 billion, not adjusted for inflation. It still holds that honor, followed by Marvel\u2019s: Avengers: Endgame\u00a0and two more\u00a0Cameron titles<\/a>,\u00a0Way of Water\u00a0and\u00a0Titanic.<\/p>\n \n\tHeading into this weekend, many tracking services had Fire and Ash crossing $100 million domestically, if not more, considering that Way of Water opened domestically to $134 million. Pundits have since come to believe Way of Water benefited from a great pent-up demand.<\/p>\n \n\tAlso,\u00a0Way of Water\u00a0had nine full days of play before the Christmas holiday, while\u00a0Fire and Ash\u00a0had six days, with the theory being that some audiences will wait to see the movie until preparations are done and presents unwrapped. All at the same time, threequels can sometimes struggle.<\/p>\n \n\tTwo movies in particular, possibly taking a bite out of Avatar: Fire and Ash over its opening weekend, were the faith-based David, from Angel Studios. The pic debuted to $22 million, a career-high for Angel.<\/p>\n \n\tLionsgate\u2019s\u00a0R-rated thriller\u00a0<\/a>The Housemaid<\/a>, starring\u00a0Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney<\/a>, followed in third place with $19 million. The film, a throwback to the 1990s, could be a key test for Sweeney following her failed Oscar hopeful,\u00a0Christy, and launched in third place with $19 million.<\/p>\n \n\tAlso opening nationwide over the Dec. 19-21 weekend was Paramount\u2019s family pic\u00a0The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, which had to settle for a fifth-place finish with $16 million.<\/p>\n \n\tMore to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Cameron\u2019s third installment in his groundbreaking Avatar series minted green at multiplexes around the globe over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[193386,11543,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-646903","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-avatar-3","9":"tag-box-office","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115759370008207127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}