Money-Gobbling ‘Avatar: The Way Of Water’ Has Sailed Past Yet Another All-Time Blockbuster

You might recall that a month and a half ago people weren’t sure if Avatar: The Way of Water would make much money. Its own creator, James Cameron, even toyed with making fewer sequels if the second entry underperformed. How naïve we all were. Since opening in mid-December, the sequel has been Hoovering up cash worldwide, out-grossing one all-time hit after another. Now it’s surpassed one more.

As per Deadline, on Friday the worldwide total of Avatar 2 ballooned to $2.074 billion. That’s enough to make it the fourth highest-grossing film ever made (not adjusted for inflation, of course). That also means it bumped another biggie from that spot: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which grossed $2.068 billion back in 2015.

Next up: another James Cameron titan, Titanic, which currently holds the number three spot with $2.187 billion. As it happens, there’s a chance Titanic will end Avatar 2’s run as the number one movie in America when it’s re-released for Valentine’s Day. Still, Cameron already has three of the top grossing films in the all-time Top 4, which is nothing to sneeze at. (The only non-Cameron film in that bunch is Avengers: Endgame.) What’s more, it’s not far-fetched that it could nab the top spot, currently occupied by…Avatar 1, which has grossed some $2.9 billion. It’s James Cameron’s world, we’re just living in it.