Avatar 2 needs to earn $2 billion just to break even, says James Cameron

It probably won't come as a massive shock to you, dear readers, to discover that Avatar: The Way Of Water was an expensive movie to make.

How expensive? Well, director James Cameron has just confirmed how much the movie needs to rake in at the box office to break even and... well, if I had been drinking tea when I read the number I definitely would have spat it out.

Check out the trailer below, why don't you?

In a recent interview with GQ, Cameron revealed that the long-awaited sequel was "very f**king expensive". While he didn't share an exact number, he said that the movie has to become

'the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history' just to even break even.

Let's break that down and look at what it means then, shall we? Cameron's original Avatar is the highest-grossing movie worldwide with $2.9 billion (USD). That's followed by Avengers: Endgame ($2.7 billion), and Titanic ($2.1 billion).

In other words, Avatar: The Way Of Water needs to make at least $2 billion just to do the absolute bare minimum any movie hopes to do. If it wants to make a profit, it'll need to start breaking some serious box office records.

Given the huge success of the original Avatar it's certainly not unfeasible that the sequel could bring in such massive numbers. Of course, it's worth pointing out that it's been over 10 years since that first movie. Has the decade between instalments helped the hype, or killed it dead? We'll have to wait until 16 December to find out for sure.

The success of Avatar: Way Of Water is also crucial to the future of the franchise, although that's kind of obvious. Cameron recently suggested that how the second and third Avatar movies perform will dictate if the planned fourth and fifth movies even happen.