Avatar: The Way of Water: Thursday box office numbers came in at around $17 million

The wait is finally over. Avatar: The Way of Water is unleashed upon the world and the first of the six sequels has been earning the praise of critics as well as nominations for multiple Golden Globe categories. The James Cameron spectacle currently sits at an 82% on the tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes as well as an 82% percent audience score with over 250,000 ratings.

Deadline reports that Thursday showings of the film, which started at 3 PM, will be rounding out to about $17 million. Cameron has stated that he fully doesn’t expect to break any records in the first weekend as the original film gained momentum in the subsequent weeks after a big, but not Earth-shattering opening. The runtime for Avatar: The Way of Water will also work against it, as the first one clocked in at 2 hours and 41 minutes, and the oceanic sequel exceeds that at 3 hours and 12 minutes. Cameron would drolly state that the runtime doesn’t concern him because he knows there will be multiple viewings with audiences.

Cameron, perhaps learning from the viewing pattern of his infamous smash hit, Titanic, which stayed at number one for 15 consecutive weekends, knows the true profits come from the multiple viewings, and banks on the later weeks rather than a huge opening that peters off in a week or two. A box office analytics company named EntTelligence notes that the preview day represents about 53% of the opening weekend numbers “which is a very good thing.”

The analytics organization also notes, “It means that this movie is not front loaded with steep box office drops. By way of comparison, a superhero movie often has 70+% of PreSales in for Preview Night/Opening Day. Lower than 70% is a strong indicator of success. 53% eclipses that benchmark.”

By comparison, the biggest Thursday preview numbers comes to around that of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 ($17M Thursday night, $56M Friday, $146.5M 3-day), and just under Jurassic World‘s ($18.5M Thursday from 7PM showtimes, $81.9M Friday, $208.8M opening) and that of The Batman ($17.6M Thursday night off 3PM, $56.6M Friday, $134M opening).