Avatar 3: Fire and Ash hit theaters on December 19, 2025, with special premium ticket options that fans rushed to buy. These premium tickets include IMAX, 3D, and high-end theater seats, which cost more than regular ones but offer better views and sound. Early reports show the movie earned $36.5 million in domestic box office from its opening days, putting it at number 46 among 2025 releases so farhttps://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-Fire-and-Ash-(2025).
Premium formats drove a big part of that revenue. IMAX screenings, released the same day by 20th Century Studios, pulled in higher prices per ticket, often $25 to $35 each compared to $15 for standard 2D. This helped boost the total because viewers wanted the full immersive experience for James Cameron’s sci-fi epic about Jake Sully and the Na’vi familyhttps://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-Fire-and-Ash-(2025). Domestic sales make up just 26.7 percent of the worldwide total so far, meaning international premium tickets added even more globally.
Breaking it down, about 40 percent of opening weekend tickets came from premium sources like IMAX and Dolby Cinema, based on patterns from Avatar: The Way of Water. For Avatar 3, this translates to roughly $14.6 million from those upscale formats alone in the U.S. The rest, around $21.9 million, went to regular tickets. High demand for the 197-minute runtime in premium setups justified the extra cost, with theaters reporting sold-out IMAX showshttps://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-Fire-and-Ash-(2025).
The film’s $400 million production budget means it needs strong premium revenue to break even quickly. Studios take about 50 percent of ticket sales after theater cuts, so premium dollars go further toward profits. Early tracking shows Avatar 3 on track to repeat the franchise’s success in these categorieshttps://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-Fire-and-Ash-(2025).
Sources
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-Fire-and-Ash-(2025)
