Movie theaters need Avatar to be a tortoise

Theater owners are banking on Avatar to keep making bank.

To understand all the creatures in Pandora, the fictional world of Avatar: The Way of Water, you need a glossary. There are titanotheres, hexapedes, direhorses, and more.

Movie theaters need Avatar to be a tortoise

But as far as the movie industry is concerned, according to the Los Angeles Times, the only question regarding animals and Avatar that matters is simple: Will The Way of Water be a tortoise or a hare?

Most blockbusters are hares

They open with huge box offices and fade.

Marvel’s blockbusters average a box office drop of ~57% between the first and second weekends. Spider-Man: No Way Home, which had the highest-grossing debut weekend in history, plummeted 68% its second weekend.

Director James Cameron has typically been an exception to this rule:

  • Titanic opened with ~$53m and followed with $71m.
  • Avatar opened with $77m and followed with $75.6m.

The Way of Water brought in $434.5m globally last weekend

According to EntTelligence, an analytics platform, the timing of the film’s gross potentially sets it up for tortoise status:

  • 53% of The Way of Water’s box office haul came from its preview night and opening day. EntTelligence claims that any share lower than 70% — the average for superhero flicks — portends a greater chance for sustained success.

The stakes are high. Americans didn’t flock to theaters over Thanksgiving, typically a major box office weekend, and theater owners badly need a hit. Plus, Cameron has said The Way of Water must make $2B+ to turn a profit.

BTW: If you see Avatar and feel sad afterwards, don’t freak out. You might just have post-Avatar depression.

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