The box office is the one location that filmmakers hope will prosper after all their hard work on a film. Despite what they might tell you, they frequently have their fingers crossed. Many well-known directors aim to top the charts of how many tickets were sold and in how much of a window after opening night because doing so might cement their reputation and the film they worked on in the annals of cinema history.

To reach that billion-person milestone or possibly beyond it is the most unattainable aim of all. A movie will live long in the mind and give you creative control moving forward if it outperforms an initial budget by this amount through ticket sales. Since the start of historical records on March 3rd, 1922, the box office has been used as a benchmark for evaluating a movie's performance. Films have been passing the $1 billion mark since the 75th anniversary.

The recent movie Avatar: The Way of Water, directed by James Cameron, made headlines by grossing $1 billion at the box office. The epic science-fiction sequel to the $2.922 billion worldwide box office hit Avatar from 2009 was released on Friday, December 16th, 2022, with a global opening of $441.7 million. The film, directed by James Cameron, had a cumulative worldwide gross of $1.401 billion as of Monday, January 2nd, 2023, ranking it as the eleventh-highest grossing picture of all time and the second-highest grossing movie of 2022, only behind Top Gun: Maverick.

The director, who previously threatened to kill off the rest of the Avatar franchise if the second movie bombed, is obviously ecstatic with the outcome. Before the release of Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron told Total Film, "The market may be telling us we're done in three months, or we might be semi-done, meaning: 'OK, let's conclude the tale within movie three, and not go on forever.'"

Two of the 51 films that have surpassed the target of $1 billion at the box office are two of James Cameron's Avatar films. There are a ton of excellent films on the list, from epic love dramas to blockbuster comic book adaptations. As would be expected in modern cinema culture, the MCU is responsible for many of these films. There is a sizable and devoted public anxious to watch every instalment of the Avengers or Spider-Man movies on the big screen in order to fully appreciate the pricey green screen effects.

The Star Wars cinematic universe rivals the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) in terms of the number of entries to the list, with the later instalments of the franchise grossing well despite being of lower quality. But together, these two brands have brought in $27.3 billion in box office revenue for Disney, with Star Wars contributing $4.8 billion and Marvel bringing in a staggering $22.5 billion.

Other films include typical blockbusters like the Fast and the Furious series or spy movies. Families, however, have a big impact on the box office because these 51 movies also include Disney animations that stand alone and other animated family pictures.

Peter Jackson's film adaptations of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, which also set Academy Award records, are proof that literary adaptations are profitable at the box office. In addition, J.K. Rowling has succeeded in turning her children's book series Harry Potter into movies that have grossed $1 billion.

As was already established, it took 75 years of officially documented box office history to see the first film to ever earn $1 billion. What was the film that broke the barrier?

Once more, Cameron deserves praise since Titanic, his 1997 epic mashup of romance and calamity, was the first film to gross $1 billion worldwide. In their breakthrough roles as two lovers who meet on the ship, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet appeared in this popular film, which was based on the tragedy of the Titanic sinking in 1912.

With a $200 million budget, Titanic was once the most expensive movie ever filmed when it was released on Friday, December 19, 1997. This reason raised expectations for the film's box office performance because Cameron and the studio acknowledged that they might be to blame for the biggest box office flop ever.

However, Titantic continued to surpass films like The Godfather Part II, Scream 2, and Tomorrow Never Dies each week. Ultimately, the movie broke all previous records by earning $1.84 billion from ticket sales. For 13 years, until James Cameron's Avatar eclipsed his own film, this romantic drama held the record for the biggest box office gross.

The movie made an additional $343.6 million after a 3D rerelease to mark the actual Titanic's sinking, bringing its overall earnings to $2.195 billion. After Avatar, Titanic became the second movie to earn more than $2 billion worldwide as a result of this change, solidifying director James Cameron's reputation as a master of the box office.