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The predictions are in. As of this writing, Avatar: The Way of Water is anticipated to herald between $150 million and $175 million in North America this weekend. Those are hefty sums, the sort normally reserved for Marvel films or Star Wars. Yes, the film’s predecessor is the highest-grossing film of all time—raking in additional than $2.9 billion worldwide since its 2009 launch—however individuals overlook that its opening weekend yielded simply $77 million, and it wasn’t considered a positive factor. It was the repeat viewers that remodeled it right into a juggernaut. Now, James Cameron and anybody rooting for the survival of theaters are hoping Avatar can beat expectations once more. 

The film, out now, hits theaters underneath a lot completely different circumstances than its predecessor. The 12 months 2009, regardless of the recession, nonetheless felt like a hopeful time, and the entire technical 3D marvels that Avatar pulled off nonetheless felt like, nicely, marvels. Audiences appeared too busy being immersed to thoughts that the film’s story was fairly rote. In 2022, movie-making bells and whistles are the rote half, and audiences, two years into the Covid-19 pandemic, could also be leery of being immersed in a theater for 3 hours and 10 minutes. 

Perhaps even Cameron is aware of this. Much of the early buzz for The Way of Water has targeted on the sequel’s improved story. “One of the (valid) knocks against the first Avatar is that the characters feel like cutouts, there largely to serve as vessels for exploring the fantastical setting,” New York magazine’s Bilge Ebiri wrote. “This time around, it feels as if Cameron has taken the criticism to heart.” Cameron has additionally spent much less time within the film’s promotion cycle speaking concerning the movie’s technical achievements. 

But will that be sufficient to get individuals into theaters? Even although films like Top Gun: Maverick and Spider-Man: No Way Home have confirmed boffo field workplace is feasible within the Covid period, there’s a way that The Way of Water goes to be a litmus check for a sure form of blow-the-doors-off/some-saw-it-three-times-in-the-theater blockbuster. That’s what occurred with the primary movie. But, as The New York Times Magazine noted recently, “Of all the questions raised by Avatar: The Way of Water, the most pressing seems to be ‘Who asked for this?’” Sure, Maverick was in a position to pull in audiences 36 years after Top Gun, however Top Gun additionally left a longer-lasting cultural footprint. On one finish of the spectrum are followers who nonetheless say, “I feel the need, the need for speed”; on the opposite are BuzzFeed quizzes like “Do you remember anything at all about Avatar?”

But it’s doable all of this will get crossed out by one other well-worn Hollywood maxim: Never doubt James Cameron. Even although it could seem to be few individuals care about Avatar as of late, which may not matter. When the unique movie received rereleased in China in 2021, it made hundreds of thousands—so many hundreds of thousands that it reclaimed the top spot as highest-grossing movie of all time, beating out Avengers: Endgame. The movie additionally comes at a time when audiences are more comfortable than ever going again to the theater. Maybe all they want is for Cameron to indicate them the best way.