Star Wars: The Last Jedi (December 15, 2017)

I agree it will make money, and I agree it will find a whole new generation of audience, I just don't think it will have the same impact that the first film did. I'm just saying that when Star Wars came out, it was an entirely new experience. No one had ever seen anything like it, plus it had insane cross-merchandising, still does. By the time the next two trilogies came out, it had the benefit of an audience of those who grew up with Star Wars and a whole new generation of fans, some who were entirely new to the whole experience, and some who were maybe introduced to it in some other format prior (video games, toys, comics, etc). The Marvel films also had that same benefit with a rich back log of comics and toys, and the movies (Marvel produced) were executed well. The Harry Potter films brought with them a huge fan base of children and young adults who identified with the characters from the novels, as well as those being introduced to the world for the first time. Even T2, was an entirely new experience. It introduced a new refined method of story-telling integrating CGI in a way that Cameron had only previously hinted at in the Abyss, plus it had Arnold, whose films were already blockbusters by this point.

My point is, the first Avatar had the benefit of being the most technically advanced 3D film of its time. That's how it was marketed, and that's how people remember it. People flocked to see this new standard of story-telling from a pioneer director who was known to constantly reinvent the wheel. Plus, it made a killing overseas for the very same fact. That's why it made so much money. Not because people could relate to the characters, not because it was an amazing story, not because it had a built-in fan base, and not because of the star power of the film. Are these necessary factors for a film in order for it to be a blockbuster? Obviously not, if you're offering a new experience, which Avatar did at the time, much in the same way Jurassic Park did when it gave us our first view of realistic dinosaurs on the big screen. By the time The Lost World came out, also from Mr. Spielberg, people also flocked to theaters to go see it, but it didn't make nearly the same impact as the first one. Sure, it killed it at the box office opening weekend, and maybe dominated it for the month, but if you look at the top 100 domestic films of all time, it didn't even make the list, while Jurassic Park still sits at number 20.

I predict the same thing for the Avatar sequels. Strong opening month, quick fade soon after. Maybe $370k total domestic, which is still great numbers, but it won't crack a billion worldwide.