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Avatar Fire and Ash mints $1 billion at box office; James Cameron is first director with 4 billion-dollar blockbusters

Avatar Fire and Ash has become the 3rd film releasing in 2025 to cross the billion-dollar mark at the global box office.

Updated on: Jan 5, 2026, 08:02:53 IST
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Avatar Fire and Ash box office: James Cameron’s newest offering - Avatar Fire and Ash - has joined the previous two films in the franchise in the billion-dollar club. According to box office tracking sites like Comscore and Box Office Mojo, the film has now grossed over $1 billion at the global box office, largely on the back of a hugely successful run overseas.

Avatar Fire and Ash box office: A still from the James Cameron film.
Avatar Fire and Ash box office: A still from the James Cameron film.

Avatar Fire and Ash enters the billion-dollar club

On Sunday, Walt Disney Studios, which produced and distributed the film worldwide, said that Avatar Fire and Ash, the third film in Cameron’s Avatar franchise, has brought in $1.03 billion in worldwide ticket sales. Fire and Ash is the third movie in the Avatar series, which has earned a combined $6.35 billion globally. The movie picks up where the second film, Avatar: The Way of Water, left off -- with characters Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) mourning the loss of a son. Fire and Ash is also the third-highest-grossing film of 2025 so far, behind China's Ne Zha 2 and Disney's Zootopia 2.

James Cameron's billion-dollar monopoly

This also makes James Cameron the first filmmaker with four directorial titles in the billion-dollar club. Apart from the other two Avatar films, Cameron’s 1997 classic Titanic also earned over $1 billion worldwide. In fact, the other three films all grossed more than $2 billion each, a mark that Fire and Ash would hope to reach as well.

The first film in the franchise, Avatar, which opened in 2009, remains the highest-grossing film of all time with a worldwide gross of over $2.9 billion. Thirteen years later, in 2022, Avatar: The Way of Water opened, grossing more than $2.3 billion globally. Before these films, Cameron had directed Titanic, the multi-Oscar-winning sensation that was the highest-grossing film of its time. Titanic, released in 1997, has grossed nearly $2.3 billion worldwide.

(With Reuters inputs)

  • Abhimanyu Mathur
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    Abhimanyu Mathur

    Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism. Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day. Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More

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