Avatar: The Way of Water has officially become 2023’s biggest hit as it continues to climb the box office ladder in the weeks following its release. The sequel to the 2009 film Avatar, which was released on December 16th, 2022, has officially reached 1.5 billion dollars in global earnings, taking the top spot of 2022 away from Top Gun: Maverick and making the film the tenth highest-earning film of all time, globally speaking.

Avatar: The Way of Water, directed by James Cameron, picks up twelve years after the events of the first Avatar film, with former Marine Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) thriving as chief of his clan, married to Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) and their four children: sons Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) and daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss), along with their adopted daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and adopted human son Spider (Jack Champion). The peaceful life Jake and the Na’vi have built for themselves is disrupted as the Resource Development Administration, or RDA, returns to Pandora, with humans intent on colonizing the planet as Earth is dying.

As familiar faces from Jake’s past return to Pandora, his family is forced to go to extremes to defend their homes and the ones they love, and it quickly becomes clear that his family – and his life among the Na’vi – will never be the same again.

Following its theatrical release in early December 2022, Avatar: The Way of Water received overall positive reviews from critics and audiences alike. Rotten Tomatoes scored the film at a 77% for critics and 92% for the audience score, calling the film “pretty standard stuff” narratively speaking, but a “stunningly immersive experience” visually. In a review for Variety, Owen Gleiberman calls the film’s story “just okay”, but applauds the film’s scenery, calling it “hyperclear” and states that “The entire world will say: We’ve got to know what this thrill ride feels like.”

Avatar: The Way of Water Becomes the Tenth Highest-Grossing Film of All Time
With Avatar: The Way of Water reaching the box office heights that it has, some may have been surprised to see it dethrone Top Gun: Maverick as the biggest hit of 2022, especially given the speed at which Maverick climbed the global ladder after its release, but the surprises don’t stop there: with Avatar: The Way of Water topping $1,516.5 million globally, it’s officially among the top 10 highest-earning films of all time at the worldwide box office.

Officially surpassing Furious 7, which grossed $1.515 billion worldwide according to Entertainment Weekly, and Marvel’s The Avengers, which hit 1.521 billion, Avatar: The Way of Water has claimed the ninth spot on the worldwide list of the top ten highest-grossing films. Internationally speaking, Deadline reports that James Cameron’s latest hit has passed Spider-Man: No Way Home in the European market, becoming the highest-grossing film of the pandemic era and ranking fifth in the region as earnings continue to rise in Korea and China as well.

It’s currently unknown whether or not Avatar: The Way of Water will take the number eight spot from The Lion King, which currently sits at 1.6 billion worldwide, or if it’ll continue to climb the list beyond even that, but it’s probably safe to say that if the Avatar sequel continues pulling in earnings at its current rate, then the world can expect to see it breaking new barriers sometime soon.

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