After 12 years of dubbing Hollywood movies into the Kazakh language, "Avatar: Su Zholy" is the first blockbuster to set a box office record in Kazakhstan, QazMonitor reports citing Tengri Lifestyle.
The Kazakh-dubbed Avatar sequel collected over ₸69 million ($147,173) since its premiere on December 15, with more than 42,000 viewers attending the screenings. The number of viewers for all translations of the movie went above one million in Kazakhstan.
Prior to this, the box office receipts of “Avatar: The Way of Water” in the CIS countries exceeded ₸3.4 billion (over $7.3 million), making the first week of the movie the most successful in the history of the CIS. The movie surpassed even Marvel blockbusters like "Spider-Man: No Way Home" (a box office of more than $4.1 million) and "Doctor Strange: Into the Multiverse of Madness" (a box office of more than $3.9 million).
The popularity of the sequel's Kazakh version indicates the development of Kazakh dubbing studios and the growing interest in watching movies in the state language. Before "Avatar 2", the dubbed version of "Blank Panther: Wakanda Forever" was also released and received a lot of public praise.
Aray Media Group is the studio responsible for the voice overs. In December, the studio director, Shakh-Murat Ordabayev, and voice actor Shekhnaza Kyzyhanova shared some of the challenges of the dubbing process.