'Avatar: Fire and Ash' reaches $1 billion in global ticket sales

By Dawn Chmielewski Jan 4 (Reuters) – James Cameron's science-fiction fantasy "Avatar: Fire and Ash" has surpassed $1 billion in global box office proceeds, the director's fourth film to cross that threshold. The film, which returned audiences to the visually stunning planet of Pandora, has brought in $1.03 billion in worldwide ticket sales, Walt Disney Studios said on Sunday.  "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.  "These movies consistently draw audiences to the movie theater," said Paul Dergarabedian, Comscore head of marketplace trends, who noted that the visually stunning 3D films are "tailor made" for watching in theaters.  The first film in the franchise, “Avatar,” which opened in 2009 and brought in $2.9 billion in ticket sales worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing movie ever in absolute dollars, according to Comscore, although it's behind the 1939 classic "Gone With the Wind" if box office returns are adjusted for inflation and average ticket prices over the decades.  Thirteen years later, in 2022, “Avatar: The Way of Water” opened, grossed more than $2.3 billion globally and won an Oscar for best achievement in visual effects. The latest installment, released in time for the holiday season, racked up $306 million in the U.S. and Canada, and $777.1 million internationally, Disney reported. Cameron's first billion-dollar blockbuster was "Titanic," released in 1997, which has brought in nearly $2.3 billion, worldwide. (Reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru and Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles; Editing by Cynthia Osterman, Sergio Non and Nick Zieminski)

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