A quarter of global consumers have watched Avatar 2 in cinemas

Earlier this spring, James Cameron’s epic sequel Avatar 2: The Way of the Water was released on streaming services such as Disney+. But how many people have seen already in cinemas? It hit theatres in 2022, raking in more than $2 billion at the box office. According to a recent survey of 18 global markets, nearly a quarter (24%) of respondents have already watched the film in theatres.

The film is moderately more popular with men, 26% of whom have seen it in a cinema, than with women (22%). It’s also more popular with younger audiences. About a third (31%-33%) of consumers aged 18-44 have watched Avatar 2 in a cinema. For 45-54-year-olds, the proportion drops to 23%. Those aged 55+ are by far the least likely to have enjoyed the film in theatres, at only 12%.

While these demographic differences are significant, they’re dwarfed by the variations between the different global markets surveyed. Nearly half of all urban Indian consumers have, at some point, watched The Way of the Water in a cinema making it the highest grossing Hollywood movie of all time in India, surpassing Avengers: Endgame which held that title since 2019. In the UAE, the proportion is nearly as high at 45%.

In the US, where the film was made, only 11% of consumers decided to buy theatre tickets, the least of any market surveyed. In Great Britain, interest is similarly low, at only 13%.

Consumers in APAC also gravitated towards Avatar's sequel film Around a third of consumers in Indonesia (35%), China (33%), Australia (32%) and Hong Kong (30%) have seen Cameron’s return to Pandora in theatres. Singapore shows the lowest proportion in APAC at 24%.

In Europe, Spain is the only surveyed market to pass the global average, with 28% having watched the film in a cinema, followed by France at 24%. Nordic consumers are among the least likely to go see this film with only 16% of Swedes and Danes choosing to do so.

The film was not much more popular in Cameron’s home country of Canada, where 17% of consumers opted to see the film in theatres.

Avatar 2 was a global box-office smash, yet this may not have been obvious in markets such as the US and Great Britain where interest in seeing it in cinemas was relatively low.

Methodology: YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 512 and 2,005 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in April 2023. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.