'Avatar: The Way of Water' fails to beat 'RRR' box office collection in first weekend? James Cameron's magnum opus zooms past ₹100 crore in India

James Cameron's magnum opus 'Avatar: The Way of Water' hit the screens all across the world on Friday, December 16, and has already earned around Rs 131 crore to Rs 133 crore in its first weekend in India, breaking the lifetime record of 'Doctor Strange' in the Multiverse of Madness.

According to box office India reports, Cameron's sequel to his 2009 blockbuster film 'Avatar' has managed to break the records of 'Avengers Endgame' in South India by a margin as it collected around 7 crore net more than the highest grossing Hollywood film 'Avengers Endgame'.

'Avatar 2' fails to beat RRR box office collection?

However, the newly released film has failed to beat the record of SS Rajamouli's 'RRR' in India that had collected Rs 320 crore in the first weekend making it the third highest-ever grossing film in India.

Trade portal Sacnilk reports that the Avatar sequel collected Rs 128.8 crore – Rs 40.3 crore on Friday (December 16), Rs 42.5 crore on Saturday (December 17) and Rs 46 crore on Sunday (December 18). Whereas, the Rajamouli film reportedly made Rs 133 crore on Day 1, Rs 88.7 crore on Day 2 and Rs 102.3 crore on Day 3.

According to the trade portal Sacnilk, 'Baahubali 2: The Conclusion' (Rs 1,030 crore, 2017), 'KGF: Chapter 2' (Rs 860 crore, 2022) and 'RRR' (Rs 772 crore, 2022) hold the record for the highest-ever net collections in India. However, experts believe that Cameron's sequel has the possibility of making Rs 500 to 600 crore in net lifetime collections in India across the languages that might help it to get the fourth rank after 'RRR'.

'Avatar: The Way of Water' gets widest release ever in cinema history

Analyst Karan Taurani told Business Today in an interview, "Most of the films these days run in theatres for three weeks. But once the content of a film is really good and picks up after the second week, it moves close to 5-6 weeks of theatrical run.

The Senior Vice-President at Elara Capital further added, "'Avatar 2' isone of those films which will have a reasonable start and, in a best-case scenario, word of mouth can make it surpass Rs 700 crore."

'Avatar: The Way of Water', which is the second of a planned five-film franchise, brings back Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver from the first film and has also added Kate Winslet in this sequel. With 52,000 screens across the globe, it is the widest release ever in cinema history.