James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” is reportedly on track for a $17 million haul in Thursday night previews, with showtimes beginning at 7 PM.
That puts it on par with openings of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2” and this year’s “The Batman” which both scored $17 million in previews ahead of $146.5 million and $134 million opening weekends, respectively.
More recently, Marvel’s “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” took in $28 million on Thursday night ahead of a $181.3 million opening weekend.
Unlike superhero films, however, “Avatar: The Way of Water” isn’t expected to be as front-loaded and so likely won’t see 60%+ drops in its second weekend like the Marvel films even if its debut isn’t necessarily as high – it’s all about the long game here.
Box office analytics corp EntTelligence says preview night/opening day pre-sales of the film represent only 53% of sales for opening weekend compared to the 70%+ of preview night/opening day pre-sales for superhero movies. With that score, the lower the better.
That’s not all. 23% of all presales are for after opening weekend – that’s putting it far ahead of Marvel fare, including the long-legged “Spider-Man: No Way Home”.
Similarly, people are also demanding high quality as showtimes for Prime 3D, Imax, Dolby and premium format viewings are reportedly hard to come by in major cities.
The film will hit 4,100 U.S. domestic cinemas from Friday, including 400 IMAX auditoriums, 950 PLFs, 280 D-box/4D motion auditoriums, 85 ScreenX locations, and 3,000 3D theaters.
The news comes as first-day overseas box-office from sneak peeks in just fifteen material markets sits at $21.2 million, with a quarter of that from China.
Source: Deadline
