Avatar: Fire and Ash went on sale for IMAX advance tickets last week, with bookings for all other formats beginning yesterday. The initial response has been strong. With more than a week left for release, the film has sold over 50,000 tickets across the two national chains for the weekend as of this morning. This amount is Rs. is more than. 3 crores in money. Overall, weekend advances have exceeded Rs. 4 crores gross.
As strong as these numbers are, they pale in comparison to Avatar: The Way of Water. At the same time, before release, Avatar 2 had earned more than Rs. crores. Rs 12 crore in pre-sales. To be fair, Avatar 2 had been on sale for a long time, while for Avatar 3, this was effectively its first full day of sales in most theaters. Still, the difference is stark and the early crowds don’t match the frenzy seen last time.
This is also in line with trends in other markets around the world, where pre-sales are lower than for Avatar 2. The reason is simple: Avatar 2 was the long-awaited sequel to a box office zeitgeist, the world’s biggest movie ever, while it’s just another Avatar movie in three years. The pent-up demand of the Avatar film, which gave Avatar 2 a significant boost in initial demand, is not in play this time.
That said, this is a James Cameron film, the master who famously said not to judge his films until the third weekend. Progress is expected to increase closer to release, and the difference between the opening day numbers of both films will be much smaller than current pre-sales. At IHNS Prediction, we are predicting that the film will collect Rs. Earning of Rs 30-35 crore in India on the first day. Additionally, Fire & Ash has a large period of holidays to collect.
For reference, Avatar opened at Rs 2. Earned Rs 48.50 crore on the first day in India. Earning Rs 465 crore in its entire run, it became the highest-grossing Hollywood film of all time in India.
