Box Office: 'Avatar' Re-Release Beats Combined Re-Release Opening of 'No Way Home' And 'Star Wars' Films

Los Angeles, September 26 - Amid the anticipation of Avatar: The Way of Water, Disney re-released its predecessor Avatar in theaters and getting rich rewards at the box office.

It has been 13 years since AVATAR was originally released in 2009, but the striking world of Pandora is forcing people to visit theaters to watch the 4K remastered version. The film generated $10 million in North America and $20.5 million internationally for $30.5 million worldwide over the opening weekend of its re-release.



"We're talking about a film that's 13 years old, which people can watch at home. The big draw is the Imax presentation. 'Avatar' is serving as a reminder of how cool the imagery of Pandora looks on the big screen", says Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst with Comscore.

The response to the Avatar re-release has been such huge that it beat the new releases as well as the re-release of some of the biggest blockbusters of all time. The movie came above Florence Pugh's "Don't Worry Darling" which grossed $30 million worldwide, though it was the number one movie in North America.

In terms of recent re-releases, ticket sales for "Avatar", which played in 1,980 theaters, came in 85% ahead of the re-release for "Spider-Man: No Way Home", which grossed $5.4 million from nearly 3900 theaters earlier this month. Domestically, "Avatar" also came above the combined gross collection of the rerelease of "No Way Home" and "Star Wars: Rogue One".



As per Variety, the remastered version of "Avatar" took the No. 1 spot in smaller markets like France ($2.9 million), Italy ($1.5 million), Singapore, and Thailand. Other top territories were Germany ($1.3 million), the United Kingdom ($1.3 million), and Korea ($1.3 million). In India, it grossed approx. $700K over the weekend.

The encouraging box office response to "Avatar" has almost confirmed the massive opening of "Avatar: The Way of Water" which opens in December this year. "Had the re-release underperformed that would be the first indicator that — uh oh — there may be a problem [for the sequel]. But this is very encouraging", Dergarabedian said.

After its latest re-release, "Avatar's" worldwide gross collection reaches $2.87 billion, comfortably sitting at the number one position of all time.

Stay tuned...