Top Gun: Maverick felt the need for speed during its time in theaters throughout 2022. However, it looks like Avatar: The Way of Water is about to swim by the high-flying sequel as it makes its way to becoming the highest-grossing movie on the 2022 movie schedule. Following James Cameron’s passion project bypassing $1 billion, Avatar 2 is now on track to overtake Tom Cruise’s legacy sequel as it works its way to making $1.5 billion worldwide.
According to Deadline, Avatar: The Way of Water crossed the $1.025 billion mark on Tuesday overseas, and it made $28.3 million domestically, which is a drop from last week, but still a lot of money. Overall, this means Cameron’s film is the No. 1 release of 2022 outside of the United States, and is the ninth biggest release of all time internationally, passing The Fate of the Furious and Jurassic World. And this is only after being in theaters for a few weeks.
It’s worth noting just how fast Avatar 2 was able to make almost the same amount of money Top Gun: Maverick made over the course of months. The Top Gun sequel hit theaters in May, and stayed in theaters for a long time, with an extra theatrical re-release in December. While Tom Cruise’s movie made more than one of James Cameron’s classics, Titanic, Avatar 2 has managed to get nearly as many ticket sales globally in the span of three weeks, and it shows no signs of slowing down.
Since Maverick’s release, and knowing that Avatar 2 was on the way, I was curious to see which movie would prevail as the highest-grossing film of 2022. Both films are legacy sequels in a way (since we had to wait 13 years for the second Avatar movie), both have big, big names attached to them, and both have jaw-dropping action as well as groundbreaking filmmaking. To add more to this already long list of comparisons, both movies have also been well-received critically and by audiences, hence the massive box office numbers. However it looks like James Cameron, and the Avatar franchise are about to prevail as the box office victor.
James Cameron has been open about the possibility of Avatar: The Way of Water flopping. However, he was confident in his product, and he proved, once again, that he is capable of creating another crowd-pleasing, money-making movie. While Avatar’s sequel didn’t have a Marvel movie-level opening weekend, consistency is key here, as it’s well on its way to being among the top films on the list of highest-grossing movies.
With all that being said, as we roll into the 2023 movie schedule, if you are looking to see either of the highest-grossing films of 2022, you can still catch Avatar: The Way of Water in theaters, and you can stream Top Gun: Maverick with a Parmount+ subscription.
