Deadline is reporting that estimates from China’s box office has given Avatar enough money from the re-release to have surpassed Avengers: Endgame, giving the James Cameron sci-fi movie the box office title again making it the highest grossing film. That’s until Disney re-releases Avengers: Endgame and the record flips back to Marvel Studios at some point.
The China reissue of the 2009 3D sci-fi phenomenon had taken an estimated RMB 58M ($8.9M) through 5PM local time on Saturday after re-releasing on Friday in the market. This closes and surpasses what was a $7.82M gap between the two films prior to China’s resissue. Disney/Marvel’s Endgame previously snapped up the top global crown from Avatar in July 2019. The current (and fluid) Avatar global total is an estimated $2,798,579,794 versus Endgame‘s $2,797,501,328.
It’ll be interesting to see if the domestic or global box office will ever fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic as many don’t believe we’ll see blockbuster movies surpassing $1-2 billion grosses any time soon. While certain international markets might be able to go back to “normal” sooner than places that were harder hit by the virus such as the United States.
The re-release comes at an important time as James Cameron is prepping to release four Avatar sequels and making sure Chinese audiences remember the franchise will be a key element of those films making top-dollar when they’re eventually released starting with Avatar 2 in December 2022. I’m extremely curious to see if Jim can replicate the success of the original film four more times.
Filming on the multiple sequels has been taking place in California for the motion-capture portion and the live-action scenes being shot at Stone Street Studios in Wellington, New Zealand. Hopefully, we’ll end up getting a teaser trailer for Avatar 2 before the end of the year from Disney/20th Century Studios.
SOURCE: DEADLINE
THE RONIN 