Avatar: The Way of Water hits $1 billion at box office after 12 days

James Cameron’s ambitious Avatar sequel is well on track to follow its predecessor at the box office – hitting a rare milestone just 12 days since its release.

The long-awaited Avatar sequel has silenced its naysayers and dominated the global box office since its release, passing the coveted $US1 billion mark in rapid time.

What makes the feat even more impressive is that it managed to reach the milestone just 12 days after its global release, a pace that will likely see it ranked with its predecessor among the top 10 highest grossing films of all time.

Avatar: The Way of Water – which comes 13 years after the groundbreaking first movie was released – is just the fourth film since the pandemic to hit the eye-watering figure.

Top Gun: Maverick, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Jurassic World: Dominion (interestingly, all sequels) are the only films which have managed to make over $US1 billion since early 2020.

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Avatar: The Way of Water has made $US1 billion in 12 days. Picture: 20th Century Studios

The Marvel flick reached the billion-dollar mark after 12 days when it was released this time last year, while Top Gun: Maverick took 31 days to achieve the feat and Dominion hit the figure at four months.

Avatar’s success at the box office is particularly impressive given the fatal blizzard sweeping across much of the US, which has seen other films impacted in what is usually peak time for theatrical release.

But despite the conditions, Avatar 2 made a hefty $US29.5 million in Christmas Day domestic total and has now passed $US300 million in domestic grosses as of Tuesday, local time, per figures released by Disney and 20th Century Studios.

The long-awaited Avatar sequel has silenced its naysayers. Picture: 20th Century Studios

The first Avatar remains the highest grossing film of all time, making an eye-watering $US2.922 billion against its $US250 million budget. Avengers: Endgame briefly became the first movie to eclipse it in 2019, having made $US2.797 billion. But Avatar was reissued in China a short time later and swiftly re-took the top spot.

Avatar 2, the first of four planned sequels in the Avatar franchise, sees Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) return to Pandora.

The duo are now parents to a brood of kids – oldest son and warrior Neteyam (Jamie Flanders), second son and outsider Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), oldest daughter Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) and youngest Tuk (Trinity Jo-Lo Bliss).

The Sullys are driven from their forest home when an old foe, the sky people (humans), rain down fire from above and recolonise parts of the planet. Chief among the antagonists is the villainous Quaritch (Stephen Lang), whose human form is very much dead but whose consciousness has now been transferred into a Na’vi avatar.