Avatar 2's Opening Weekend Caused A Stock Market Drop For Movie Theaters

Almost a decade ago, blockbuster pioneers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas predicted that the movie industry was headed toward an "implosion." They foresaw with remarkable accuracy a new business model where there would be variable ticket prices, fewer theaters, and studios investing all their money in one or more would-be blockbusters (as opposed to spreading the wealth across an array of more interesting and personal mid-budget films). Spielberg said he anticipated "an implosion where three or four or maybe even half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground and that's going to change the paradigm."

Fast forward to the event movie landscape of 2022 — going on 2023 — and it feels like that prediction is closer to coming true. With a domestic opening of $134 million, "Avatar: The Way of Water" hasn't exactly gone "crashing into the ground," as Spielberg once said. Some might scoff at the idea that the turnout for James Cameron's long-awaited "Avatar" sequel (to say nothing of the movie itself) is a disappointment at all. Globally, "The Way of Water" raked in another $300.5 million, bringing its total worldwide gross up to $434.5 million, or almost half a billion dollars already. By comparison, the first "Avatar" movie, when adjusted for inflation, had a $334 million opening (per Forbes). So, by almost any metric — except maybe the one Cameron himself set — "The Way of Water" would surely qualify as a success.

Apparently, the stock market has a different outlook. Indiewire reports that stocks in the Cinemark and AMC theater chains both plunged this Monday, with shares dropping 10.30 and 8.26 percent, respectively, as the market came back from the opening weekend for "The Way of Water." In addition, shares of IMAX and Disney were down 5.76 percent and 4.77 percent, respectively.

With all this talk of things crashing, it should be stressed that those numbers aren't enough to herald a stock market crash or a Hindenburg-level crash of the whole movie business. At the same time, they're not very encouraging if you were hoping — as Wall Street seemed to be — that "Avatar" might be the thing to save theater exhibitors. Cameron, who once proclaimed himself "the king of the world" for his international hit about the Titanic's sinking, has called "The Way of Water" "the worst business case in movie history," saying it needs "to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history" just to break even.

The real question is whether this belated sequel of his will have long, blue, Na'vi-like legs at the box office, as the first "Avatar" did. Indiewire also points out that "The Way of Water" didn't have much box-office competition over the weekend and won't have much more of it over the holidays, either, and that's partly because "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" backed off its release to 2023 to avoid going head-to-head with it.

There's a school of thought that says a rising tide lifts all boats, and we should support films like "The Way of Water" because it's our duty as cinephiles to help keep the moviemaking machine afloat (via trickle-down cinema economics or something). Another school of thought is: there may be slightly fewer repeat customers who care about 3D blue cat people now than there were in 2009. Despite all its talk of family, all its marketing, and the wall-to-wall coverage that /Film and other sites have provided, "The Way of Water" lacks the once-in-a-lifetime buzz of "Avatar," and it may well leave some casual Disney+ subscribers waiting to stream it at a later date.

It's a drop in the bucket compared to "The Way of Water," but it's worth noting that "1923" — the new "Yellowstone" prequel led by Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren — just gave Paramount+ its biggest-ever streaming debut over the weekend as well. At some point in the day on Sunday, seven million viewers were at home or online, watching a Western, rather than out at the multiplex.

I can't speak for anyone else, but as someone who just spent the last twelve months doing a deep dive into the vampire movie genre, I feel like my own personal tastes have drifted away from franchise films like "The Way of Water," toward more niche fare since the pandemic began. This goes along with what the aforementioned George Lucas said in 2013 about how TV and VOD is "usually more interesting than what you're going to see in the movie theater" because "you can get it whenever you want, and it's going to be niche-marketed, which means you can really take chances."

For his part, James Cameron continues to inspire parasocial adulation and remain a multimillionaire who isn't averse to flicking off crowds, so I'm sure he'll be fine, and "The Way of Water" and its "A" CinemaScore will be, too. But the movie is set on the planet Pandora, and there's a part of me that thinks Pandora's box is already wide open in Hollywood. I'm not sure who's to blame in the chain of supply and demand — maybe we all are — but it feels like Martin Scorsese was right about "massive theme park films" (including literal ones of the "Avatar" variety) drowning out "the cinema of human beings." Half a billion bucks is nothing to sniff at, but maybe we shouldn't pin all our hopes on circus tentpoles.