Will ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ Help Make ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ a Hit?

We’re almost a year out from Avengers: Doomsday hitting the big screen. The massive Marvel team-up film will see Robert Downey Jr. take a villainous turn as Dr. Doom, as well as feature multiple returning characters from FOX’s X-Men films. Doomsday may serve as one of the last movies of the MCU as we know it, as Kevin Feige has hinted toward a potential reboot after the sequel, Secret Wars, is released the following year. So, it’s a little surprising that we haven’t seen any footage yet.

There was a big announcement video with a lot of chairs, which was, technically, footage. There was also, apparently, footage screened at an expo a couple of months ago. But there hasn’t been anything for the masses. Doomsday will be one of the biggest swings the MCU has taken, and we’ve yet even to see a teaser trailer. However, that looks like it will change when the world once again returns to the world of Pandora to swim with the Tulkun.

Avatar: Fire and Ash hits theaters on December 19th, and I am beyond hyped. My movie-going habits have taken a hit this year, thanks to a new job and my children’s school schedule (the latter of which I thought would work to my advantage, which was incorrect). So, there are plenty of films I’ve yet to see. One Battle After Another has evaded my gaze because I know finding almost three hours would have been difficult (and I want to see it with my wife). An over three-hour film, though? I’ve already got my ticket (which lines up with an end-of-the-year vacay).

I’m sure I won’t be the only one. The screening I’m attending, over a week after the film’s release, was almost empty when I purchased my ticket yesterday, and has since gotten almost a third of the way full. The first Avatar made almost three billion dollars at the box office. Thirteen years later, its sequel made 2.3 billion. Is that a dropoff? Sure. But it’s still pretty impressive for a film series that constantly gets teased for having no cultural footprint.

That said, it is still a drop, and the next film has a lot riding on it. James Cameron has said that there are plans for several more films if this new one does well. If it doesn’t, he’ll wrap things up with one more movie. Disney seems pretty invested in Avatar as a franchise, so it would make sense to try to stack the deck in its favor. Given how Hollywood metrics work these days, a sub-2 billion box office could be seen as a failure for the Na’vi, so the Avengers are on the way to help.

There are reports out that the trailer for Avengers: Doomsday will be attached to Avatar: Fire and Ash. While it is unknown whether or not it will release online, I could see a world where they hold off on doing that until the new year. The last two weeks of December are prime movie-going time, so it would only behoov them to try and take advantage of people wanting to be in a dark room with their relatives instead of talking to them.

Will that push people to go see the film who didn’t want to before? People bought tickets to see Meet Joe Black so they could view the Phantom Menace trailer, and Meet Joe Black is almost as long as the new Avatar. That said, the film still underperformed. Avengers: Doomsday will likely have a boffo box office next year, but I don’t think that superpower will translate over to Pandora, but that certainly doesn’t mean Avatar: Fire and Ash won’t be successful regardless.