A $12 million Thursday preview and $25 million+ Friday adds up to a blockbuster start for “Avatar: Fire & Ash,” James Cameron’s third film in his planned five or six film exercise in Pandora fantasy world-building.

Deadline.com thought it might hit $90 million over three days leading into Christmas week.The Numbers confirms that it earned $88 as of Sunday night.

What Deadline doesn’t mention is that “Avatar” opened at a pre-Trumpflation $77 million back in 2009. And they sure as shootin’ don’t mention that “Avatar: The Way of Water” did a boffo $134 million on its opening weekend in 2022.

As the first film opened big and then steamrolled into a culture-shifting blockbuster that owned the winter of 2009-2010 on its way to $785 million domestic box office take and the second film fell off from that, are filmgoers waiting to see what their friends say about this latest film before seeing the third one?

Or is the falling off from “Avatar” to “Avatar 3” just a sign of audience fatigue? Any way you count it, that’s millions fewer tickets sold, and as “The Way of Water” ended up earning $100 million less than the original $688 in North America), the ceiling’s closing in on Cameron and Disney/20th Century’s golden goose.

Reviews — aside from those of a few bandwagoner cowards — have been indifferent to dismissive. I found the falloff between the second and third films’ novelty more pronounced than that of the first to the second. “Dazzling tedium” is what you get when the ideas behind your Big Ideas are thin in the first place, and your sequels don’t speak to our world as it stands today. Dull between the CGI brawls.

For whatever reason — broke filmgoers or wary ones — it’s opening big, but not big at all by “Avatar” standards

It’s also big news that the last weekend before Christmas has a tight race for second place.

The Biblical hero cartoon “David” from Angel Studios had a middling Thursday but robust Friday ($8 millon Thurs./Fri.) and cleared $22 million this weekend..Reviews have been mixed on that one, butI thought it worked and played as their animation — as it was in “King of Kings” — is on a par with the Big Boys.

Paul Feig’s latest women-powered thriller,“The Housemaid” is “David’s” rival for second place. I may have seen that one in an empty theater for a Thursday preview, but it picked up the pace to manage around $8 million for its “opening day,” was projected to clear $20, but only earned $19, either thanks to or in spite of mixed reviews. Not sure what other folks are seeing in this clumsily structured, almost suspenseless thriller.

Sydney Sweeney fanboys? Fangirls?

The latest“Spongebob Movie” didn’t make much of a mark Thursday and won’t really gear up until Saturday and Sunday (families with children) ticket sales are tallied, but good reviews (most discriminating critics don’t bother with these films) won’t hurt its chances of settling into the top five for the weekend. It cleared $16. Meh.

It won’t catch“Zootopia 2,” but it will finish ahead of it this one weekend as Disney’s latest manasted $14.5 million on this, its fourth weekend of release.

“Five Nights at Freddy’s 2” is fading fast. Very fast. “Freddy’s” just cleared the $100 million mark and added $7. “Wicked the Last” is well over $300 million and will add $4.

“Hamnet” is still in the top ten.

But “Eternity,”  the re-release of “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and the repackaged “Kill Bill” saga and “Ella McKay” and “Now You See Me Now You Don’t” exited the top ten forever and ever.

Timothee Chalamet’s “Marty Supreme” did well enough in limited release to crack the top nine (barely).