Pandora restores beautiful colors to the American box office, anemic as at home. Awaited for thirteen years, the sequel to Avatar cumulates on its first Friday of exploitation 53 million receipts at the American box office. That figure includes the $17 million raised from Thursday's previews. This is the biggest start given to a James Cameron film.

If it stays on this momentum, The Way of the Water can hope to raise by Sunday evening 130 to 150 million dollars. This puts Avatar 2 behind the superheroes and dinosaurs of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (90.7 million), Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (84.2 million), Thor: Love and Thunder ($69.5 million), Jurassic World Dominion (59.5 million) and The Batman (56.6 million). But it's far more than the first part of Avatar, which started more slowly with 26.7 million dollars.

Available on more than 4,000 screens, The Way of the Water suffers from its length, more than three hours, which reduces the frequency of screenings. However, he does not really have any rivals likely to overshadow him for the coming weeks. But time had played in favor of the initial feature film. First-weekend receipts had been a "modest" $77 million. However, carried by good word-of-mouth and the wonder aroused by its unprecedented 3D technology, Avatar had reigned for a long time at the top of admissions to become the most profitable work in American cinema with 2.92 billion in revenue.

Abroad, The Way of the Water also finds its audience with 127.1 million dollars in revenue. With a budget presumed to rise to over $350 million, the bar is set high for James Cameron. The director of Titanic admitted that if the sequel to his saga did not find enough followers, he would stick to a trilogy. And would drop the planned fourth and fifth installments. According to certain sources, James Cameron would have 9 hours of images to mount this third film, which has already been shot.