Sure, you’ll probably be a bit today, celebrating either Christmas or National Jews Get Chinese Food and Go to the Movies Day. The plan is for our “mixed” family (Wendy is half-Jewish/half-Catholic/all-guilt) to do both: open presents in the morning and catch up with Anaconda later that afternoon.

However, if you’re stuck at a Christmas gathering and wish to avoid small talk with relatives, here’s 95 glorious minutes to consume that’s subtler than trying to discreetly watch the next three episodes of Stranger Things on your phone.

So do listen to our 100th (!) episode as you A) watch the world (of dread and fear) outside your window, B) dry your bitter, stinging tears, C) tune out the clanging chimes of doom and… sing it with me now… D) Thank God it’s them instead of you!

To the business at hand. With a $347 million global opening weekend and a (by the time you read this) global total just over/under $500 million, Avatar: Fire and Ash looks to be doing that thing that every James Cameron movie since Piranha II has done.

Onto the matters at hand...

Yes, I checked, and even The Abyss ($53 million from a $9.5 million launch in 1989) and True Lies ($146 million from a $26 million debut in 1994) both legged out like proverbial motherf***ers, even if the underwater sci-fi flick barely doubled its $45 million budget in global grosses. Also, I’ll assume that Piranha II: The Awakening did eventually recoup its alleged $146k budget, but I digress.

In a skewed irony of sorts, both of the elder statesmen (Luke and I) have mostly nice things to say about the third Avatar, while the comparative “barely old enough to rent a car” co-hosts are far sharper and crankier. To be fair, I actually agree with 85% of the criticisms offered, I just didn’t find them dealbreakers, and seeing it a second time in IMAX 3-D honestly “helped” with many of my initial comparative misgivings.

Nonetheless, all parties are more than satisfied with the money procured by Jake and Neytiri and overjoyed with the strong grosses offered up via the slew of new movies in what looks to be an “everybody wins” year-end holiday blitz.

Topics of discussion…

— Jeremy Fuster offers the bluntest and most straightforward explanation of the ongoing divide between the Avatar franchise’s lack of comparative non-theatrical monetization (ie, merchandise) and the sheer-of-the-moment popularity of each respective chapter. He’ll eat his words when Payakan becomes next Halloween’s most popular costume, but he’s right for now.

— Lisa Laman expresses frustration with Cameron’s comparative “just because he can” use of high-frame-rate, in a far more regular and less concentrated way than in The Way of Water.

— Luke Thompson contrasts the conversation about the repetition of elements from Way of Water in this new chapter with the initial 45-year-old criticism lobbed at the “barely a single movie” The Empire Strikes Back. Scott Mendelson, meanwhile, compares Fire and Ash to the “Richard Donner Cut” of Superman II.

— Scott Mendelson, alongside all of the Avatar 3 chatter, gives a hearty horay for everything else in the marketplace while arguing that The Housemaid, not Americana or Christy, is the kind of movie that should be a measuring stick for Sydney Sweeney’s alleged box office bankability.

— There’s quite a bit more, including Action For Everyone’s Max Deering debuting as a real-time engineer/producer for the first of… well, however many times he finds it convenient to hide in the corner, while inquiring as to what Avatar 4 might look like, especially if (speculation alert) Cameron opts to produce instead of direct.

Recommended Reading…

— Scott Mendelson argues that the first Avengers: Doomsday trailer is an admission that Disney has spent the entire 2020s failing to cultivate new-to-MCU heroes, while debunking the “Avatar 3 only opened well because of that teaser for The Odyssey” narrative.

— Jeremy Fuster explained why another $2 billion-plus worldwide gross is probably not in the cards for Avatar 3.

— Lisa Laman offered up her picks for the best trailers of 2025.

— Ryan Scott discussed the late James Ransone’s under-the-radar MVP status in a slew of iconic horror movies over the last 15 years.

— Max Deering discusses the Alan Wake video game series and how it deals with hyperstition.

— Luke Y. Thompson defends ten ill-received TV series finales.

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