Avatar 3 Box Office: Hits $1.4 Billion Worldwide, But Falls Short of Predecessors

6 days ago 11

Published Jan 28, 2026, 2:15 PM EST

Rahul Malhotra is a Weekend News Writer for Collider. From Francois Ozon to David Fincher, he'll watch anything once.

He has been writing for Collider for over two years, and has covered everything from Marvel to the Oscars, and Marvel at the Oscars. He also writes obsessively about the box office, charting the many hits and misses that are released weekly, and how their commercial performance shapes public perception. In his time at Collider, he has also helped drive diversity by writing stories about the multiple Indian film industries, with a goal to introduce audiences to a whole new world of cinema.

Swing and a miss > measured victory. Also, #JusticeForHan. (He/Him).

Director James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash is losing momentum at the box office after a largely successful month-long run and running out of time to catch up with its record-breaking predecessors. The movie is still trailing the original Avatar, released in 2009, by about $1.5 billion worldwide. Even the middle film, Avatar: The Way of Water, defied the odds to gross $2.3 billion at the worldwide box office. Avatar 3, on the other hand, opened to lukewarm reviews and became the first film in the trilogy not to receive a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. In fact, it was essentially snubbed, earning just two nominations in total. Despite these setbacks, it has joined Avatar and Avatar 2 in passing the coveted $1 billion milestone at the international box office.

The film has grossed an additional $378 million domestically, for a cumulative global haul of nearly $1.4 billion. While the movie will probably hit the $400 million mark domestically and the $1.4 billion mark worldwide before the end of its run, these might be the final milestones that it passes. If this turns out to be true, Avatar 3 will be viewed as an underperformer, simply because it'll be compared to its overachieving predecessors. Avatar is the highest-grossing film in history, while Avatar 2 is the third-biggest film of all time. Cameron's Titanic, which was released in 1997, is the fourth-biggest hit ever, with more than $2.2 billion in worldwide box office revenue. With Avatar 3, Cameron became the first filmmaker to direct four billion-dollar hits in a row.

The Future of the Avatar Franchise Is Uncertain

Produced on a reported budget of $400 million, Avatar 3 is currently among the 20 highest-grossing movies in worldwide box office history. It recently overtook The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, Black Panther, and Star Wars: Episode VIII — The Last Jedi on the all-time charts. Domestically, the film is sitting at the 61st spot on the all-time charts, behind Finding Nemo and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Avatar 3 holds a series-low 66% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, and its box-office performance so far has cast doubt on the franchise's future. While Cameron originally announced plans for two more movies, no firm updates have been made about them in quite some time. You can watch Avatar 3 in theaters, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.