Avatar: The Way Of Water has made $1bn (£831m) at the global box office in just 14 days, becoming the fastest film to pass the milestone this year.

The long-delayed sequel has proved a hit with audiences despite wildly varying reviews.

It is one of only three films to surpass $1bn this year, after Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion.

However, director James Cameron has said his technologically innovative movie needs to make $2bn to break even.

The film picks up after the events of 2009’s Avatar, which is the highest-grossing film of all time, with box office receipts of $2.97 billion (£2.47 billion).

Analysts say the new instalment is unlikely to beat that figure, as cinema attendances are still down, post-pandemic.

But based on current performance, the film is likely to overtake Top Gun: Maverick as the biggest film of 2022.

That news may come as a surprise to critics, some of whom panned The Way Of Water as a “lumbering, humourless damp squib of a movie” in which “nothing meaningful happens” and “the story is really pretty stupid”.

Others were more enthusiastic, calling the film an “eye-popping, jaw-dropping spectacle” and a “fully immersive waking dream”.

The original Avatar was essentially a science-fiction version of Pocahontas – following the story of greedy, colonialist humans stripping the resources of a distant planet called Pandora.

It was told through the eyes of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a human soldier who fell in love with a native warrior called Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), and came to recognise the importance of Pandora’s delicately balanced ecosystem.

The sequel is set several years later, as Sully and Neytiri head under water to protect their planet from another human invasion while attempting to raise a family.