Avatar: The Way of Water has collected more than 2 lakh advance tickets in India with 10 days to release. The movie's pre-sales began fifteen days back last month, and as of Tuesday morning, 2.15 lakh tickets had been sold for a total of Rs. 8.50 crore ($1 million). 3.50 crores of the total sales were made on the first day, with the remaining 2.50 crores occurring on Saturday and Sunday.
The premium formats account for a huge chunk of movie sales, with IMAX making about 30% of overall sales and 4DX contributing another 15%. Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Chennai in South India are the leading cities. These cities are followed by Mumbai and Delhi in the North. In North India, only the national chains have started selling, with some single screens and neighbourhood plexes also available there. As a result, the national chains account for 75% of overall sales, with PVR being the largest among them with 85,000 tickets sold as of this morning. This weekend is when the official opening is anticipated.
Pre-sales in India usually begin just a few days prior to release. It was only this year that we noticed some Hollywood films starting their pre-sales several weeks early. The majority of sales still occur in the final days before release. There aren't many movies to compare it against. But among those that started taking reservations earlier than normal, Avatar 2 is much ahead of every other title. The only exception is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, with both films enjoying comparable sales at the same time.
Why are pre-sales for Avatar 2 so similar to those for Doctor Strange when the expectations for its opening day are so high in the marketplace? Avatar is probably going to do better with the general public than "Multiverse of Madness," an MCU tentpole with strong fan demand that caused purchases to frontload. Avatar 2 ought to have a larger opening weekend than Doctor Strange, despite having pre-sales that are comparable to Doctor Strange at the same time. At least, that is the way it should be.
The two most popular pre-sellers from Hollywood in India Post-CoVID are Doctor Strange 2 and Spider-man: No Way Home. Each were having final pre-sales of more than Rs. 40 crores. With a staggering Rs. 80 crores, Avengers: Endgame has an all-time record, far surpassing all else. As of right now, Avatar is not anticipated to make it to Endgame, but it can aim to come in first and second.
