Avatar: The Way of Water only needs to make a tiny bit more money to break even

James Cameron's Avatar: The Way Of Water is inching closer to the colossal amount it needs to earn at the box office in order to start making any money.

The iconic director says the long-awaited follow-up to 2009 original needs to become the 10th highest grossing film of all-time in order to break even.

That equates to the film taking home USD$1.5 billion (AUD$2.2 billion, £1.2 billion) at the worldwide box office.

While that sounds like a highly ambitious goal, the second movie in the franchise is closing in on that figure.

Currently, worldwide box office takings indicate the film has already brought in a whopping USD$1.38 billion (AUD$2 billion, £1.1 billion).

This means in a matter of days fans could see Avatar: The Way Of Water eclipse the minimum needed to make the film a profit, and therefore a success.

Cameron explained last month that he'd warned the film studio the sequel would be 'the worst business case in movie history' because it was 'very f***ing expensive' to make.

The director, who is also the man behind the Terminator films, Point Break, and Titanic, told GQ that if The Way of Water is going to make a profit, 'you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history'.

He added: "That’s your threshold. That’s your break even."

That would have meant The Way of Water had to make more than $2 billion at the box office.

As per an interview shared on social media by Culture Crave, Cameron has since walked back on those comments.

“I was a little inaccurate with that," he said of the follow-up film.

"It's probably more like the 10th highest to break even. But yeah, it has to achieve at a very high level."

James Cameron on his previous comments

“I was a little inaccurate with that”

The film is currently at $1.38B pic.twitter.com/3CvOryPHl3

— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) January 1, 2023

The film soared past the USD$1 billion (AUD$1.4 billion, £829 million) mark in global ticket sales in two weeks, meaning it earned itself the title of the fastest movie of 2022 to hit that box office milestone.

That in itself is an impressive feat.

Only a handful of other films in 2022 managed to make the billion-dollar mark.

It took Top Gun: Maverick 31 days to make that sort of money, and more than four months for Jurassic World Dominion to hit the same incredible milestone.

According to Variety, The Way of Water is the fastest film to hit the billion dollar box office mark since 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home.

Marvel's multiverse mega-movie only took 12 days to hit the billion dollar figure.

Only six movies in the history of filmmaking have managed to clear USDS$1 billion in their first fortnight.