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James Cameron has added another $1 billion movie to his filmmaking belt.
Avatar: Fire and Ash officially crossed the $1 billion global box office threshold on Saturday, Jan. 3, two weeks after the third movie in Cameron’s visionary science fiction-fantasy series was released in theaters across the world on Dec. 19.
The ticket sales include $306 million earned domestically and $777.1 million that was garnered internationally, according to 20th Century Studios.
Previously, 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water earned $1 billion after 14 days, and 2009’s Avatar did the same after 17 days, Variety reported. The first two movies in the franchise are among the highest-grossing films ever.
Avatar: Fire and Ash is one of three movies released in 2025 that crossed the $1 billion mark at the box office. Lilo & Stitch has earned $1.038 billion, and Zootopia 2 grossed $1.51 billion, according to 20th Century Studios.
courtesy of 20th Century Studios
Avatar holds the record for the largest lifetime gross, per Box Office Mojo, while 2022’s The Way of Water holds third place.
Avengers: Endgame (2019) stands out as second on that list, while Cameron’s 1997 disaster epic Titanic also makes the list at number four.
Fire and Ash stands out as the longest installment in the Avatar series so far. The new movie picks up soon after the events of The Way of Water and finds the Sully family reeling after the death of Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri’s (Zoe Saldaña) eldest son Neteyam (Jamie Flatters), as series villain Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) renews his efforts to find and capture Jake.
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Kate Winslet, Cliff Curtis, Jack Champion, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Edie Falco, Oona Chaplin, Sigourney Weaver, David Thewlis, Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, Bailey Bass, Dileep Rao and more star in the new movie.
Two more Avatar movies are in the works, though filmmaker Cameron, 71, has said recently that he is not yet certain the series will continue to tell those stories.
20th Century Studios
“I don’t know if the saga goes beyond this point. I hope it does,” he told Entertainment Weekly on Dec. 26. “But, you know, we prove that business case every time we go out.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash is in theaters now.
