As we know, since the beginning of the promotional campaign for Avatar 2, it has been written everywhere that to reach its break-even point, James Cameron’s film must reach 2 billion dollars at the box office. Figures given as an estimate by many analysts after the interview given by the Canadian filmmaker to QG magazine stating that “Avatar: The Waterway had to become the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history to be profitable.” If the film is on the right track to reach 2 billion dollars in the coming weeks (it has already exceeded 1.5 billion dollars at the global box office in not even 3 weeks), James Cameron has returned to this famous break-even point during a filmed interview with a Chinese media. Asked about the fact that Avatar 2 must exceed 2 billion dollars, the director readjusted his speech.
In reality, AVATAR 2 has already paid for itself.https://t.co/0EVHNfpCZF
Interviewed by a Chinese media on the subject, James Cameron readjusted his remarks by saying that the BREAK EVEN was rather around the 10th biggest cinema success, or 1.5 billion according to estimates. pic.twitter.com/kXmFNyIHmL
— Maxime CHAO (@MaximeChao) January 3, 2023
I was a little inaccurate with that. It’s probably closer to the 10th biggest hit to break even. But yes, it must reach a very high level.
It’s also one of our challenges and it’s what allowed us to try to do better, to be better, to make a more beautiful, more convincing, more emotional film. It forced us to be as excellent as possible. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll be more in tune with the audience, in the sense that Titanic or even the first Avatar managed to do that.
It is impossible to know in advance. So our role is to make the best film possible. We can’t control market trends, we can only be in control of what we put in our film.
By reformulating his sentence (we go from the third biggest success to the tenth now), James Cameron thus lowers the degree of pressure which weighs on his shoulders and that of his film. According to the readjusted estimates, Avatar 2 must therefore exceed $ 1.5 billion at the box office to be profitable and start making money. And considering that for the past few hours, the film has already generated more than 1.5 billion dollars worldwide, Avatar 2 is officially a film that can finally make money. It remains to be seen whether James Cameron intentionally inflated the break-even point to try to bring as many people as possible into the cinemas…
