Avatar: The Way of Water sinks Titanic overseas at the international box office

Last Updated on February 8, 2023

It would seem that the only one who can take down James Cameron is James Cameron. Avatar: The Way of Water is continuing to make a splash (puns intended everywhere here) as it had already crossed the $2 billion mark and now, Deadline is reporting that the long-awaited sci-fi epic sequel is overtaking Titanic at the worldwide box office. This would now put the movie in third place behind the first Avatar and Avengers: Endgame.

The film remains at number one as a non-local movie for several off-shore markets, which include France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, and Korea. Avatar: The Way of Water‘s top five performing markets are China with $240.6M, France with $141.5M, Germany with $130.7M, Korea with $105.5M, and the UK with $88.2 M.

In addition to being a big action sci-fi sequel to a franchise, which is a big money-making genre of film anyway, the movie also benefitted from re-drawing attention to big premium format theaters as well as the call to watch to film in 3D. These filmgoing amenities are ones to usually increase the price of a normal movie ticket. The global total for IMAX showings is $247M, of which $170M of it comes from the international box office. The IMAX totals in China is $52M, the second-best ever in the market. As a whole, Avatar: The Way of Water is IMAX’s biggest global first-run release of all time and the format’s top-performing release ever in just under 50 countries.

Bollywood movies continue to see an explosion in popularity as the world box office also sees Pathaan, a Hindi film starring Shah Rukh Khan, make history. The movie becomes the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever worldwide, excluding China with $95.1M with $36.7M coming from overseas markets.

Back on the domestic front, Avatar was finally dethroned as it dropped to third place this past weekend after new movies such as Knock at the Cabin and 80 for Brady duke it out to win the week. Knock at the Cabin, by notorious thriller director, M. Night Shyamalan, would come out as the victor. This would end Avatar: The Way of Water‘s eight week reign at the top of the box office.