When the history of humanity is logged—presumably by futuristic alien robots who happen to be really good at swimming—we can only imagine how they’ll react to the single most important fact about our ever-peaking global civilization: The fact that we made James Cameron’s Avatar the most successful movie ever, not just once, but twice, and across three different decades.
“What was it about this film,” these future cyber-historians will ask themselves, in their supersonic binary trill, “That made these people return to it, over and over again?” “What was the unobtainium deep inside themselves that forced them to seek out and exult this pretty-but-honestly-only-adequate film about blue people riding space dragons and make it the most powerful performer in their history—not just when it came out in 2009, but also in 2021, when it somehow surged back into their so-called “boxed” office?” “Who is Sam Worthington, and why can’t we remember his face six seconds after it’s off the screen?” These will be the questions that our robot gravediggers will ponder, as they mull over our warped and waterlogged bones.
Anyway: Avatar is, once again, the most successful movie ever, as Deadline reports that Chinese audiences—exulting in the chance to sit in a goddamn movie theater again at last, thanks to their relative freedom from COVID-19—went out to see the film in droves this weekend. So far, they’ve spent $5.8 million on their return trip to Pandora this weekend, which, while not amazing in terms of pre-pandemic numbers, is still enough to knock Avengers: Endgame off its very shaky perch on the top of the list of the highest grossing films of all time. Avatar now sits at $2.798 billion worldwide, a major coup for its owner, Disney, who just unseated its hated rival Disney for the honor of getting all our money.
Meanwhile, here’s your regular reminder that Cameron is still on the hook to make four sequels to his sci-fi blockbuster, and that two of them have already completed principle filming. Avatar 2 is currently slated for a December 2022 release.