Avatar held the title of the most successful feature film in history until Avengers: Endgame came out. The finale of the superhero epic beat the 2019 sci-fi flick and, at an estimated $ 2.797 billion, hit the highest box office revenue ever from a movie.
But now Avatar is back on top: At around $ 2.802 billion, Avatar is now just ahead of Avengers: Endgame.
What are the reasons?
How can a film that first hit theaters 12 years ago still write such big numbers? The answer is very simple: Avatar came to cinemas again in China on Friday and is generating enough income there to catch up with Avengers and put itself back on the throne of the most commercially successful movie of all time.
In the first two days of its relaunch in China, Avatar was able to raise $ 12.3 million, like the magazine Deadline reported. So it can be expected that the lead over Avengers will increase even further in the next few weeks.
At the time, in 2010, Avatar had ousted the previous leader Titanic from 1997 from the throne. Titanic had grossed around $ 2.195 billion at the box office. In the race for first place, however, Avatar has the advantage that the film has been in theaters several times since 2009 – as is currently the case in China.
In case you didn’t know, there is even an Avatar game. Here you can find our test from 2009:
more on the subject
James Cameron’s Avatar im Test
Successor in the making
Avatar wants to build on its success: There are four follow-up films on the way, but so far only parts 2 and 3 are slowly approaching completion. Avatar 2 recently finished filming the live-action scenes, while Avatar 3 also has almost all of the scenes in the can.
Fans will have to be patient before Avatar 2 hits theaters: December 14, 2022 was named as the date for the premiere in Europey.
