Internationally I'm feeling this will recapture a lot of the box office momentum the first one had, especially in APAC. Domestically still not convinced. Think the floor is a lot lower for this one and believe BP2's opening 4 weeks earlier is going to be a zeitgeist domestic moviegoing event.

Avatar 1's domestic (26.7%), overseas (73.3%) was the breakdown in 2009. I could see this shift even more dramatically where Avatar 2 does 15% domestic to 85% overseas and still do $3B WW.

There were entire schools going to the original BP for showings so it became much bigger than just a movie. A lot of the interest will be how they approach it with their star gone. It became the #3 film of all time and nearly pulled a 3.5 multiplier in Feb. on an inflated long weekend. It's going to be a massive event and would not be shocked if it outgrosses Shazam's total run in its first 3 days.

I would not be surprised by an OW that surpasses Spiderman.

Sucks that Russia is not gonna contribute, and mayeb China as well?

It's anybody's guess. At least the film doesn't have anything political going against it. But it is ultimately a film from Disney, and China doesn't like them right now for some reason. But The Way of Water already had a private screening in China, so Cameron and co. seems to be sucking up to this one market. Which I guess makes sense being such a huge market. It still wouldn't surprise me if China says no, but what's most likely is that they just play their normal games of giving it a bad release date, not allowing advertising, getting their army of bots to review bomb it, and pulling it after 31 days even if it's still making good money (which is normal in China for foreign movies).

The first film is a pretty direct critique on the Iraq War. China could market it like that. But it's also very pro-American since we've loved our "revolt against the Empire" stories since 1777 and obviously it's a white man and his god that saves the day at the end.