Box office: James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water makes Rs 40 crore on Day 1 in India

A still from James Cameron's 'Avatar: The Way of Water'.

The last VFX-laden film to do really big opening-day business at the Indian box office was Brahmastra. The Ayan Mukherji-directed film had taken a start of Rs 37 crore at the box office across all languages. Now Avatar: The Way of Water has gone one up over that, with Rs 40 crore* being collected.

There are a few common factors between the two films. To begin with, both are VFX-heavy with sci-fi elements involved. Also, both have made audiences wait for long. Avatar was released in 2009 and ever since then audiences have waited for James Cameron to bring out the sequel. Brahmastra too was announced more than half a decade back, and finally it arrived in 2022. There was great advance booking for both films and the results were there to be seen when the first day collections came in. Interestingly, both movies also arrived on a non-holiday, showing yet again that when a good movie is round the corner, audiences can sniff it out at a distance and the holiday factor doesn't make any difference. Yes, the numbers could of course be bigger but then when such a huge opening comes in anyway, there is no worry factor involved.

Also read: Avatar 2 film review: ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is an epic spectacle of technical bravura

Released in IMAX and 3D formats, both Avatar: The Way of Home and Brahmastra are big-screen spectacles - properties screening Avatar 2 in these formats are seeing the best results. Not that 2D formats is not bringing in footfalls but then there is a clear difference for sure. That said, numbers for Hollywood movies often drop as the weekend progresses. So analysts will keep an eye on it still.

Good news for theatrical businesses is that when a film works out, it really works. We saw this in September after the release of Brahmastra which brought in business of over Rs 250 crore in India. Post that, Kantara released in October and brought in over Rs 85 crore just in the Hindi version. Then it was time for Drishyam 2 to arrive in November and it has already entered the 200 Crore Club and still running, and now it's December arrival of Avatar: The Way of Water which should hit a double century as well.

Talking about Drishyam 2, it is still doing well, with the four-week collections at Rs 215.70 crore, and week 5 starting with Rs 1.07 crore coming in on Friday.

As for An Action Hero, the film which released a week before that, it has just about managed to cross the Rs 10 crore mark. The only consolation is that it has done a little better business than Anek which had folded up at Rs 8.15 crore. Ayushmann Khurrana's next film Dream Girl 2 is slated for a 2023 release.

Meanwhile, last week's releases Salaam Venky, Maarich and Vadh have all turned out to be theatrical disasters. While the Kajol starrer emotional drama folded up under the Rs 2 crore mark, the other two with Tusshar Kapoor and Sanjay Mishra, respectively, have ended up under the Rs 1 crore mark each.

*Estimates. Final numbers awaited

Note: All collections as per production and distribution sources