Avatar 2 will be released in China, unlike any Marvel movie since 2019

Avatar: The Way of Water will become one of the few American releases to run in Chinese cinemas, helping boost its box office prospects.

Avatar: The Way of Water now officially has a Chinese theatrical release. Recently, China has increased its censorship of American films, especially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to many huge changes, including every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie in 2019 not being released in the territory, which has taken a big chunk out of their potential box office profits.

Avatar 2, coming soon

According to Variety, it was recently announced that James Cameron’s Avatar 2: The Way of Water, the long-delayed sequel to 2009’s stunning Avatar, will be one of the few American versions of the pandemic-era film to be released in China. The film will be released there on December 16, the same day it premieres in the US and most other international territories. It will be available in both standard theaters and IMAX – the latter was a big part of why the original was such a box office success.

Avatar: The Way of Water is already poised to be one of the biggest box office movies of 2022. For one thing, it’s the long-awaited sequel to the highest-grossing film of all time, which certainly gives it a boost.

While things already look rosy for the upcoming Avatar: The Way of Water, it has yet to turn in a gigantic box office performance to be profitable in any way. One of the most expensive films of all time, the sci-fi epic project has raked in an estimated $400 million, a number that doesn’t include advertising expenses, which are probably staggering for a film of this size. The general rule of thumb for estimating the total cost of a film is to double the reported budget, which would bring the film to nearly a billion dollars immediately. Recently, Cameron himself admitted that the big-budget Avatar sequel needs to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” just to break even.