Since its grand theatrical release last Friday, James Cameron’s visual extravaganza ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ has already breached the $600 million mark at the box office globally. Much has been said about how the Avatar sequel must cross the $2 billion box-office figure to be profitable and/or to break-even. So, there is still massive pressure on the makers.
Earlier this week, Disney’s share price had purportedly dropped to around $85.76 at the start of the week from around $90.04 on last Friday (coinciding with Avatar 2 release). The share price drop resulted in speculations that the reason could have been Avatar 2’s less than expected box-office performance during the first weekend. However, the stock price later recovered slightly to $86.67 on Thursday.
As per industry estimates, ‘Avatar 2’ was expected to make around $525 million during the first weekend. But it fell short by grossing (a still impressive) $441 million at the box-office. Until now, the film has grossed about $610 million worldwide.
Now the question is: Is ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ capable of reversing the negative stock price trend in the coming weeks? Although stock market trends work in complicated and unanticipated ways, ‘Avatar 2’ still has the potential to do it. If Avatar 2’s box-office performance can adversely affect the market and Disney share price, then why can’t its future box-office figures help initiate an upward stock price trend for Disney?
And there is a reason behind it. Firstly, the Christmas and New Year holiday season is yet to begin. That’s when the film is expected to attract a huge segment of audiences to the theatres. And secondly, if we compare the $441 million box-office opening for ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ to the first Avatar movie, the latter opened with $77 million with a lifetime gross of a whopping $2.92 billion (albeit not inflation adjusted).
So, if ‘Avatar 2’ continues to perform well in theatres, it definitely has the potential to surpass the $2 billion figure and send positive signals to the stock market, thereby potentially increasing Disney’s share price as well. In the post-pandemic box-office era, if ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ can do it, then why can’t James Cameron’s ‘Avatar 2’? And as they say: Never ever underestimate James Cameron.