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Topics: Film and TV, James Cameron, Money
Ali Condon
Topics: Film and TV, James Cameron, Money
James Cameron is officially the only director to have three films pass the $2 billion benchmark at the box office.
It turns out people really, really like Avatar, with the long-awaited sequel Avatar: The Way of Water becoming James's third film to hit the two bill mark.
Just six weeks after it finally landed in cinemas, The Way of Water earned a strong $2.024 billion - handy, given the film reportedly cost between $350 million and $450 million to make.
In fact, Cameron admitted before the film had even dropped that it needed to make $2 billion in order to turn a profit.
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To be fair, he had every reason to believe he could do it, what with Cameron's first Avatar film being the highest-grossing movie ever at $2.9 billion.
James's third film to hit the $2 billion milestone was the classic 1997 film Titanic, which is the third-highest-grossing movie of all time at approximately $2.1 billion.
The only other three films to ever meet this threshold are all Star Wars or Marvel films.
Falling between Avatar and Titanic with an impressive $2.7 billion is the monumental Marvel film Avengers: Endgame.
Its predecessor Avengers: Infinity War is the fifth-highest grossing film, with $2.05 billion, just losing out to the fourth-highest grossing film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which earned $2.07 billion.
That puts Avatar: The Way of Water in sixth place currently.
Since it only took six weeks to hit $2 billion, The Way of Water has also become the second-quickest film to hit the milestone, only losing out to Marvel's Avengers: Endgame, which earned $2 billion in just 11 days.
The slowest to make it to $2 billion has been Titanic, which only made the cut 5,233 days after it first premiered.
The Avatar franchise is now well underway as the third film in the saga has largely been filmed and the fourth has already had some scenes shot.
Not too much is known yet about the third film, though James did hint that it would show a much darker side to Pandora.
"In the early films, there are very negative human examples and very positive Na’vi examples," he told 20 Minutes.
"In Avatar 3 we will do the opposite. We will also explore new worlds, while continuing the story of the main characters. I can say that the last parts will be the best.
"The others were an introduction, a way to set the table before serving the meal."
Sounds like Cameron might have another $2 billion hit on his hands.