‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ Is Struggling To Pass Final Box Office Milestone After Oscars Snub

3 weeks ago 18

Image via 20th Century Studios

Published Jan 31, 2026, 9:59 AM 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).

Nearly two months into its theatrical run, James Cameron's Avatar: Fire and Ash is poised to fall well below both its predecessors at the box office. The epic threequel hasn't shown the staying power with which the franchise had become synonymous. The first Avatar, which was released in 2009, grossed nearly $800 million at the domestic box office and topped the charts for seven weekends in a row. Its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, was released over a decade later, but it proved that interest in the franchise hadn't dwindled. It grossed nearly $700 million domestically. Both earned Best Picture Oscar nominations and rank among the highest-grossing films of all time. Avatar 3, on the other hand, is still struggling to hit the $400 million mark domestically, and was recently snubbed by The Academy.

The film is expected to gross around $5 million domestically this weekend. By Sunday, its total domestic gross should hit the $385 million milestone. As things stand, Avatar 3 will have to put everything it's got into hitting the $400 million mark. It could still fall short of the $423 million lifetime haul of last year's Lilo & Stitch remake, as well as perceived cash-grabs such as A Minecraft Movie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. At the worldwide box office, Avatar 3 should be able to pass the $1.4 billion milestone by Sunday, but this would still put it approximately $1.5 billion behind the first Avatar, and around $1 billion shy of Avatar 2's lifetime haul. Avatar 3 opened to the least enthusiastic reviews of the trilogy, and appears to have settled at a 66% critics' score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

'Avatar 3' Had a Massive Budget to Recover

Produced on a reported budget of $400 million, it's among the most expensive movies of all time. Cameron has said that the franchise can continue only if future installments have lower budgets. In the run-up to Avatar 3's release in December, Cameron downplayed the sequels, despite having initially expressed an interest in making at least two more movies. He filmed Avatar 2 and Avatar 3 back-to-back, and production of the fourth and fifth installments was contingent on the performance of the third film. Cameron had previously created a writers' room to map out the stories of the epic saga, and it is understood that the scripts of the fourth and fifth movies have been written. The franchise's future remains unclear at this stage. You can watch Avatar 3 in theaters. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.