Disney and James Cameron’s third Avatar movie, “Avatar: Fire and Ash,” hit theaters Thursday, snapping up $12 million in early preview screenings domestically.

The second installment in the film series, “The Way of Water,” had a better start and tallied $5 million more in its Thursday preview haul in 2022. Still, box office analysts expect “Fire and Ash” will bring in at least $100 million during its opening weekend in the U.S. and Canada.

“A lot is riding on the performance of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash,’ and with less than two weeks remaining in the year, the film’s results will play a pivotal role in shaping the annual box office totals,” Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends at Comscore, told CNBC.

Fueling global ticket sales will be international markets, which collected $43.1 million in preview screenings.

“The circumstances surrounding each ‘Avatar’ film have been quite different,” said Shawn Robbins, director of analytics at Fandango and founder of Box Office Theory. “The first was a sleeper-turned-phenomenon during a pre-streaming box office heyday, the second a beneficiary of pent-up sequel demand and eventized-status in moviegoing’s post-Covid recovery and the third is now opening in a more competitive and new-normal market.”

The Avatar franchise is a unicorn in Hollywood. Despite garnering widespread acclaim and massive financial success at the box office, the franchise has never quite captured the cultural relevance that “Star Wars” or the Marvel Cinematic Universe — both also owned by Disney — have enjoyed. Toy sales fizzled and cosplayers donning heavy blue makeup at pop culture fan conventions have become few and far between.

Yet, both 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “Avatar: The Way of Water” have topped $2 billion at the global box office, with the first film teetering close to $3 billion in total ticket receipts.

“The constant is the James Cameron factor,” Robbins said. “Audiences expect grand visuals, sound and storytelling when they buy tickets to his movies. They consistently meet or exceed expectations with long runways at the box office and exclusive theatrical windows because they deliver an experience that cannot be duplicated at home.”

Driving these strong hauls is the sale of premium large format tickets for screens like IMAX and Dolby, as well as 3D showings, which tend to be more expensive than regular tickets. 

While 3D films have fallen out of favor with domestic audiences, they remain popular internationally —especially in China. Indeed, “Avatar” made the bulk of its money outside of the U.S., with a whopping $2.08 billion coming from overseas.

Dergarabedian said the franchise has consistently benefited from moviegoers’ enthusiasm for seeing the films in 3D.

“The original ‘Avatar,’ released in 2009, was a groundbreaking film that reignited widespread interest in 3D cinema, setting the stage for subsequent entries to capitalize on this trend,” he said.

The international preview sales shared by Disney on Friday did not include China. The company noted that early estimates indicate an opening day of around $17.1 million, which would mark the third-highest opening day for a Motion Picture Association film since “The Way of Water.”

“While ‘Fire and Ash’ is looking at a diminished box office opening relative to ‘The Way of Water,’ it’s all about the long game,” Robbins said. “Premium screens are locked up into the new year, Cameron’s films are not front-loaded like most Hollywood franchises, and international performance will again far outweigh domestic.”