Avatar: The Way of Water has officially crossed $1 billion at the global box office in just 14 days, and it is the fastest film in 2022 to reach that milestone.
As reported by Variety, Avatar: The Way of Water has brought in $317.1 million in North America and $712.7 million internationally, which brings its global total to $1.025 billion. It has so far surpassed Jurassic World Dominion as the second highest-grossing movie of the year and it currently sits at the third highest during the COVID-19 pandemic era.
Jurassic World Dominion took over four months to cross the billion mark, and the other $1 billion box office film in 2022 that Avatar: The Way of Water sits behind – Top Gun: Maverick – took 31 days to reach the milestone. For one more comparison, Spider-Man: No Way Home took just 12 days to earn $1 billion.
Avatar: The Way of Water opened on December 16, 2022, and brought in $134 million in its first weekend in North America and $435 million globally.
Director James Cameron has said Avatar: The Way of Water has to be the 3rd or 4th highest-grossing film of all time to make money, meaning it will have to bring in over $2 billion globally if it hopes to do so. The sequel to 2009's Avatar cost around $350 million and marketing costs have exceeded $100 million.
The original Avatar took 17 days to earn $1 billion at the global box office, and it continued to bring in a ton more and finish as the highest-grossing movie of all time at $2.97 billion.
In our Avatar: The Way of Water review, we said that it "is a clear improvement on its predecessor and, though its story isn’t breaking new ground, its jaw-dropping visuals make this an irresistible return to Pandora."
For more, check out which character from a James Cameron directed film IGN's audience thinks is the best, our explainer of the ending of Avatar: The Way of Water, and where the sequel ranks on our list of the best films from Cameron.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.