Hollywood Thought James Cameron's Avatar Would Flop While It Was In Theaters

It's happened several times throughout James Cameron's career. It happened with "Titanic" in 1997, and it happened with each of his three "Avatar" movies in 2009, 2022, and 2025. Cameron aims high, taking on one of the biggest, most ambitious film projects of all time. Audiences and investors admire the ambition but mock the expense, laughing that Cameron's ultra-expensive, effects-based movie has no chance of recouping its losses. Cameron has made some of the most expensive movies of all time, and his career has long been riddled with doubters who are skeptical about his ability to make the money back.

Each time, he has proven the doubters wrong. "Titanic," "Avatar," and "Avatar: The Way of Water" all become some of the highest-grossing films of all time. (At last measure, those three films are in the top five, alongside "Ne Zha II" and "Avengers: Endgame.") As of this writing, "Avatar: Fire and Ash" is already one of the 10 highest-grossing films of the year domestically, and one of the five highest internationally. It is likely to surpass the billion-dollar mark in the next few weeks. It's not quite a mega-hit on the same scale as Cameron's previous three movies, but it's hardly a failure. The lesson seems to be that Cameron always was and always will be a sure bet, at least when it comes to the box office. 

One can look back to 2009 to see a lot of the skepticism at play about "Avatar" in particular. The film opened at #1 at the box office on December 19, grossing $73 million in its opening weekend. That was reported on by the New York Times, and the 2009 article was peppered with doubtful language. There was certainly no prediction that it would become the highest-grossing movie of all time.

The New York Times article acknowledges that, yes, $73 million is a very healthy opening for a Christmas sci-fi movie in 2009, but ends that observation with the phrase, "fell short of industry expectations." The Times even noted that a large winter storm hit the East Coast the weekend "Avatar" opened, driving people away from theaters. It also noted not the successes, but the notable drop-offs "Avatar" made from Friday to Saturday, writing, "Philadelphia sales fell 57 percent on Saturday, Washington's fell 75 percent and New York's drooped 18 percent." Those aren't the kind of numbers one writes about when expecting a movie to explode in popularity. 

The article continued to skeptically observe that, "the movie will need to demonstrate supernatural hold on audiences in the coming weeks to avoid becoming a financial calamity for Fox." The author also pointed out that "Avatar" opened lower than other recent blockbusters like "I Am Legend." That film still made an impressive $585 million at the box office, though, so it's not the worst comparison. They also pointed out that "Avatar" opened on fewer screens than most major blockbusters, which may have hurt its bottom line in the end. There is only the briefest of mentions that IMAX screens had to actually add showtimes to their lineup due to so many sold out screenings. 

Guess what? "Avatar" did indeed demonstrate a supernatural hold on audiences. After several re-releases over the years, "Avatar" has grossed about $2.9 billion worldwide in total. James Cameron did it again. No one assumed his sci-fi adventure fantasy exploration of colonialism would do well, but everyone wanted to see the new, stellar special effects.

Of course, as I write this, similar skepticism is swirling about "Fire and Ash," only in the first few weeks of its release. It opened to $89 million, which isn't much lower than the original "Avatar" when adjusted for inflation ("Avatar" would have opened to $110 million in 2025 dollars), but a CNBC headline described those numbers as "weak" and "disappoint[ing]."

Since then, "Fire and Ash" has made over $1.3 billion at the global box office at the time of writing. That total will almost certainly surpass $1.5 billion and perhaps even $2 billion by the end of the film's run in theaters, making a pile of cash for the studio. Ultimately, the chances of it ending up as one of the 10 highest-grossing movies ever are still very good.

Here in the pages of /Film, Ryan Scott previously noted that "Fire and Ash" needs no skepticism; it's already a massive hit. Even if it ultimately "underperforms" compared to the other "Avatar" movies, it's still a barn-burner. In fact, the biggest source of skepticism this time around is Cameron himself. Speaking on "The Town with Matthew Belloni" podcast in November 2025, the director cautioned:

"[The budget for 'Fire and Ash'] is one metric f**k ton of money, which means we have to make two metric f**k tons of money to make a profit. I have no doubt in my mind that this movie will make money. The question is, does it make enough money to justify doing it again?"

Assuming that "Avatar 4" does happen, Cameron has already said that he may not direct it himself. The filmmaker is planning to take a break from science fiction with a historical war picture called "Ghosts of Hiroshima."