Avatar The Way of Water box office day 1: James Cameron film opens to ₹40 cr; beats No Way Home, Infinity War

James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water is already off to a great start at the Indian box office. On its opening day, Friday, the film collected approximately ₹38-40 crore.

This means it has beaten the opening day collections of Avengers: Infinity War and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

It however, still could not surpass the biggest Hollywood opener the country has ever seen, Avengers: Endgame.

Avengers: Infinity War had collected ₹31 crore on day one and Spider-Man: No Way Home minted ₹32 crore.

Avengers: Endgame stood tall above them all with ₹53 crore opening. Avatar, part 1, is still the biggest film in the world with a total box office collection of $2.9 billion.

Avatar: The Way of Water follows the story of a moon called Pandora and the colonization that threatens the indigenous Na'vi humanoid race that inhabits it.

It's got 80% of critics recommending it, according to the review site RottenTomatoes.com, with Movie Mom's Nell Minow calling it "more of an experience than a movie, but the experience is a fun place to visit."

Avatar: The Way of Water has managed great reviews from critics just like its predecessor. It is all expected to do exceedingly well in the coming weeks.

However, one must note that currently the price for a normal IMAX seat is also shooting up to ₹2500.

In US, it took in $17 million in Thursday preview ticket sales, a solid but not spectacular start for one of the most expensive films in Hollywood history.

The film generated an additional $50.4 million in international markets in its first two days, Disney said in a statement Friday.

The film is expected to take in between $145 million and $179 million in US and Canadian theaters through Sunday, and hundreds of millions more globally, according to forecaster Boxoffice Pro.

That would still put it alongside the biggest movies of the year, and be a much-needed boost for cinemas still struggling to come back from the pandemic.

The film will be among the widest releases in Disney history, debuting on over 12,000 screens in the US and Canada and 40,000 internationally.

It's being released at the same time globally in every country, a rarity in the business.

The large number of screens will be critical to allowing more people to see the film, because its three-hour-plus length limits the number of times it can be shown daily, notes Comscore Inc.'s Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian.