Updated:

Jan 11, 2026 9:24 pm

Posted:

Jan 11, 2026 9:20 pm

Avatar: Fire and Ash has now grossed $1.231 billion globally after four weekends in theaters, with Zootopia 2 up to $1.655 billion worldwide after six weekends.

James Cameron’s sci-fi sequel added $21.3 million domestically and $65.6 million internationally this weekend. In total, Avatar 3 has made $342.6 million domestically, leaving the majority of its box office — $888 million — coming internationally. That’s par for the course for the Avatar movies, which have tended to show staying power at theaters and perform particularly well in China. Avatar: Fire and Ash has made $149 million to date in China, and is behind only Zootopia 2 in terms of films released in 2025. Speaking of Zootopia 2, it’s made an incredible $1.276 billion internationally, with $611 million coming from China. It is Walt Disney Animation’s highest-grossing movie of all time.

The special effects-heavy Avatar films cost a huge amount of money to produce, but they have historically made billions of dollars at the box office. 2009's Avatar 1 remains the highest-grossing movie of all time (not adjusted for inflation), and has earned a staggering $2.9 billion across several theatrical runs. 2022's Avatar: The Way of Water has earned $2.3 billion, meanwhile, cementing its place as the third-highest grossing film of all time — just ahead of Cameron's own Titanic.

We’ve spoken for some time now about Avatar: Fire and Ash’s box office performance and how well it’s doing relative to Avatar 1 and 2. Avatar: Fire and Ash is indeed trailing both its predecessors at this point in its run — by some distance, too. After weekend four, Avatar: The Way of Water had made $1.713 billion, and Avatar had made $1.335 billion. It looks increasingly unlikely that Fire and Ash will end up matching Avatar 1 or 2 by the end of its theatrical run. But the bigger question is whether it will end up doing well enough to convince Disney to greenlight Avatar 4 and 5. Disney has given both sequels release dates already: Avatar 4 currently has a December 21, 2029 release date, with Avatar 5 due out December 19, 2031. Cameron, now 71, would be close to 80 years old by the time it all wraps up.

In the run up to Fire and Ash’s release, Cameron admitted he was feeling nervous about the film’s box office performance and expressed concern about the “forces” working against theatrical releases in 2025. Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Cameron said there was potential for “sequelitis.” He added: "people tend to dismiss sequels unless it’s the third Lord of the Rings film and you want to see what happens to everybody, which in my mind this is — this is the culmination of a story arc, but that may not be how the public sees it.” And there’s the “one-two punch” of streaming and Covid, which means fewer people are going to the movies — 75% of the number in 2019, Cameron suggested.