The $350-460m was the production budget, and I think that only includes the Avatar 2 portion of what was filmed, not the Avatar 3 portion. P&A (printing and advertising) budgets aren't included with production budgets, and Disney likely threw a massive marketing campaign behind it, hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing for tv and movie theater ads, posters, billboards, websites, etc. Then you have the cut of the box office that theaters/cinemas take, which is around 30% I think. Lastly, there is the possibility that some of the actors or Cameron himself are getting a royalty percentage of the box office, further adding to the break even point. I could definitely see it being around the lower end of what Cameron predicted, in 2 different interviews he said it needed to either be the 5th or 8th highest grossing movie to break even point, which puts break-even around $1.66b-$2.05b. That upper number seems unrealistically high for sure and was likely Cameron trying to get pity watches from people, but the lower number could be closer to accurate.

Deadline says the budget is $460m so unless the marketing budget was a near $1bn, which is so ridiculously unlikely, then $2bn to break even doesn't make a single bit of sense, I don't even think Avatar 2 has been advertised that much more than your typical major Disney film, at least from what I've seen.

Even if it was a large marketing budget, nobody is spending a near $1bn on marketing when the average is around $150-$200m, Infinity War and End Game were in that range too. I'm very confident in saying that Avatar 2 has either already broken even or maybe even profiting already, as it has already crossed $1bn.

Cameron didn't actually say $2bn though, here is the exact quote.

Cameron apparently told Disney and 20th Century Studios executives that his sequel budget was so high it represented "the worst business case in movie history." According to the director's estimates, "you have to be the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history. That's your threshold. That's your break even."

Notice how he doesn't actually say when he told Disney/Fox this? It doesn't make much sense that he told them this in 2022, the quote fits better as what he told the execs at the time of pitching the film, which was in 2012 - 2013 so that would have been between $1.3bn - $1.5bn for the "third or fourth highest grossing films"

That still sounds too high to me though, so I think he could also simply be overhyping how massive the film is to get people to go out and see it, or the dude doesn't actually know off the top of his head what the 3rd-4th highest grossing films are and just threw that random range out there because it sounded large enough, Lol.

Nobody is greenlighting a film that needs $2bn just to break even, not even Disney.

Well, you have to remember that not all of the box office goes to Disney, the movie theaters/cinemas get a cut of all box office, which last I heard was around 30%, and then any actors or production crew that negotiated for a percentage of royalties get a cut too. 

For the purposes of example. Let's say that the production budget was on the high end at the maximum estimate of $460m. Then you have the P&A (printing and advertising) budget, let's estimate it was $400m (no idea how big it actually was, Disney hasn't said). That is $860m combined. Let's say the movie ends it's run at around $1.6b. You then minus the 30% theater/cinema cut from that, which gets you $1.12b in revenue going to Disney. Then let's say that Cameron himself, as well as 2 of the actors on the film, each managed to negotiate a 1% royalty deal on the movie, that would be another 3% removed from the revenue, that should be $1.08b in revenue for Disney, against the combined production-marketing budget of $860m, for a profit of $220m for Disney.

So yeah, I think you might be right that Cameron was talking about needing to be 3rd or 4th place at the box office to break-even back in 2012-2013, rather than 3rd of 4th place now. It's also worth noting that he said 7th or 8th place is the break even in a different interview at the red carpet premiere, which seems to have been referring to 7th or 8th place in the modern box office, as opposed to the earlier quote referring to him telling Fox execs in 2012-2013 that 3rd or 4th place was the break even. But even 7th or 8th place in modern box office would be $1.6b ish just to break even, and that still seems too high to me, unless the marketing budget is much higher than the $400b estimate I gave above.

No matter what way you look at it though, it does seem like Avatar 2 will probably hit break even. Even if the break even is on the high end estimate of $1.6b that Cameron gave at the red carpet premiere, Avatar 2 just had a very successful post-Christmas Monday of $100m worldwide, bringing the total so far to $960m, and the rest of this week and weekend should be fairly high with kids and teens off from school and bored, looking for things to do. It seems to me like it is tracking to hit around $1.6b lifetime. It certainly doesn't seem like it will do nearly as well as the original movie did at the box office, but it should break even at least and bring in a net profit for Disney after home video sales and a Disney+ subscription boost after it hits D+.

I'd say Avatar 3 isn't in risk at all, it was already filmed and would cost way too much to cancel at this point (they reportedly already spent $250m filming Avatar 3 and that is before the post-production work to CGI the movie). I do think that Disney will tell Cameron to f*ck off with his request that all 9 hours of footage that were recorded for 3 be given post-production CGI before he edits it down from 9 hours to 3-3.5 hours. Doing 9 hours of high quality CGI would be ridiculously expensive and cause Disney to get serious flack for crunching the employees at Weta Workshop and Industrial Light and Magic (who collaborated on the CGI for Avatar 2). They will want a lower overall budget for Avatar 3 to increase it's chances of success, not a higher budget, so they will definitely force Cameron to edit 3 before the CGI is done. 

The planned Avatar 4 and 5 are definitely at risk though. If Disney can't manage to make 3 alot more profitable than 2 (via a reduced production and marketing budget), I think they will go ahead and axe Avatar 4 and 5. Cameron said that he planned for the ending of 3 to serve as a possible ending for the whole series in case Disney doesn't greenlight 4 and 5.

Avatar 2 officially crossed 1 billion in 13 days. Domestic crossed the 300 million mark.

It was my fav movie of 2022. Much better then the original. Both visuals and storytelling.. It was a well thought out movie. Visuals and 3d was next level. It will be awhile till anything comes close close visually.

The next big hitter at the box office (Ant-Man) won’t release before mid-February. This movie will be the main reason to go to the cinema for weeks to come so I’m pretty sure it will have better legs than what most people expect, just like the first one.

No word yet whether PSVR2 will support 3D blu-ray, whether the PS5 will support 3D blu-ray, whether Avatar 2 will get a 3D blu-ray release. The chances I'm getting to see this movie are very slim!

No chance it had a $400m marketing budget, that'd be more than NWH and Endgame combined.

All this talk reminds me of the same sort of rumors that floated around the first Avatar when it came out, that it had costed half a billion to make, the most expensive movie ever yadda yadda. I don't discard it's even some sort of pre-release marketing ploy from JC...

Counting in the tax rebates I doubt it's more than some $300m plus marketing, which would be in-line with what we've heard about the budget for the sequels earlier this decade while still allowing it to have ballooned somewhat.

Can that not be done like on PC where you can get like a screen in VR and watch whatever you want on it?.

Yes easily but that just puts it on a virtual flat 2D cinema screen. I have no idea whether stereoscopic 3D blu-ray playback is supported on PC, nor does my laptop have a blu-ray drive or any drive at all :/

Seems 3D streaming is very limited as well, no mention of VR headsets.
https://www.lifewire.com/watch-3d-movies-online-4164359

It worked so nicely on PSVR, full screen 3D stereoscopic blu-ray playback, however the resolution of PSVR was just too low to fully show the movie. PSVR2 has the resolution for 3D blu-ray, but I'm afraid the home 3D movie ship has sailed...