Avatar’s China release targets Avengers’ box office record

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

It's very possible that Avatar could be trying to reclaim its crown as the highest-grossing film of all-time at the worldwide box office. James Cameron's 2009 former box office champ is getting a rerelease in China this weekend and that could very well threaten Avengers: Endgame, which currently stands as the highest-grossing film in history.

Chinese movie theaters will be showing Avatar beginning on Friday in both IMAX 3D and standard 3D. It hasn't been made clear how long the engagement will last but Avatar only needs $7.4 million to overtake Avengers: Endgame. The current worldwide box office total for Avatar stands at $2.79 billion while Avengers: Endgame barely edges it out with $2.792 billion. I'm not sure how many moviegoers in China will be clamoring to see a rerelease of Avatar but the figure could be easy to overtake if there is enough interest.

Box office around the world has been on life support due to the COVID-19 pandemic for much of the last year but China has seen its moviegoing rebound in a big way. In 2021 alone, China has seen huge hits like Hi, Mom ($783.4 million from China alone) and Detective Chinatown 3 ($680.6 million, $398 million in China) bring life back to their box office as they were one of the first overseas locations to see a successful return of their movie theaters amid the pandemic. 

During Avatar's original run, China represented more than $200 million of the film's international gross. The film had a pretty unprecedented run, debuting with $77 million at the domestic box office before legging it out to a total of $760.5 million domestically by the end of its run. At that time, its domestic gross and international take of $2.02 billion was far ahead of what any movie had ever accomplished and the idea of those figures being beaten seemed like wishful thinking.

Then 2019 and Avengers: Endgame called and proved to be the thorn in Avatar's side. The film entered its opening weekend with a staggering $356 million domestic opening weekend and continued its record-breaking run from there. It should be noted that both films saw rereleases during their runs that inflated their totals so it wasn't just from one run at the box office but it seemed like Avengers: Endgame could hang out to these bragging rights for the foreseeable future, especially with the lack of moviegoing we saw in 2020 and the early part of 2021 so far due to the pandemic. The grosses are so close that anything could happen after Avatar gets this new IMAX run in China and it's possible that we'll be looking at the film reclaiming its box office supremacy. 

Do YOU think the China rerelease will make Avatar top Avengers: Endgame at the global box office?