James Cameron officially first director to have three movies hit $1.5 billion at the box office

What do you get when you release a sequel to the highest-grossing movie of all time?

The answer is a ridiculous amount of money. As UNILAD reports, James Cameron, the director behind the Avatar films and Titanic (1997), is now the first director ever to have three movies all earn $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office.

Take a look at the trailer for Avatar: The Way of Water below.

To break it down, between all its releases, Avatar has raked in a colossal $2,922,917,914 at the worldwide box office (that’s about £2,455,562,923 for my fellow UK brethren). Meanwhile, Titanic (the third-highest grossing movie of all time, behind Avengers: Endgame), has earned $2,201,647,264 in its lifetime (around £1,849,618,617).

Cameron’s latest film, Avatar: The Way of Water, has already made it into the top 10 highest grossing movies ever made, and at the time of writing, has earned $1,516,558,728 worldwide (about £1,274,071,148). That’s no mean feat.

With that said, the new movie still has a way to go before it even breaks even with its budget, if you can believe it. Cameron previously revealed that it’d have to become “the third or fourth highest-grossing film in history” to do so, which, looking at the current rankings, means it’d have to get up to around $2 billion. At the rate things are going, it looks like it’s still got a good chance of pulling it off, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Cameron was feeling a bit nervous at the prospect.

We’ll have to wait and see if Avatar 3 will also have what it takes to join the lineup of the director’s very successful films. Currently, it’s rumoured that a nine-hour cut of the film is already out there, somewhere, which is a frankly terrifying thought.

Avatar: The Way of Water is out in cinemas now.