James Cameron Becomes The Only Director To Helm Three $2 Billion Movies

"Titanic" director James Cameron just ticked one more iconic box as he has become the only director in history with three movies surpassing $2 billion at the box office. Cameron is the brains behind several wildly successful movies such as the first "Avatar" film, "Titanic," "The Terminator," franchise, "Alita: Battle Angel" and others.

Before releasing "Avatar: The Way of the Water," Cameron revealed that he already had sequels lined down to the fifth film to release in the coming years. This, however, was on the condition that the second and third movies did as significantly well as the original "Avatar" film, which was released to cinemas in December 2009.

Now months after the comment, the movie has exceeded $2 billion at the box office and made the celebrated director the brains behind three of the most successful films in the world.

Keep on reading to learn more.

Cameron just became the first director to cross a significant milestone. This weekend, the success of his "Avatar: The Way of Water" made the filmmaker the only director to have three films surpass the $2 billion benchmark. The film achieved this on Sunday at the international box office, merely six weeks after its release.

"Avatar: The Way of Water" amassed $2.024 billion against its $350 million to $460 million budget. Cameron's two other films, which have passed the $2 billion mark, include the first movie, "Avatar" (2009), which has reached a total of $2.9 billion against a $237 million budget.

The second is the 1997 "Titanic," which amassed $2.1 billion against a $200 million budget. Besides Cameron's three successful films, only three other titles have gone over the $2 billion mark, and they all belong to Disney.

Cameron's 2009 "Avatar" is the highest-grossing movie ever released, with Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) coming in second. The film reached $2.798 billion on a $356 million to 400 million budget. The third in line is "Titanic" with $2.1 billion, after which "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (2015) appears on the list with $2.071 billion. The latter was done on a $306 million budget.

Marvel's "Avengers: Infinity War" (2018) is up next and grossed $2.052 billion with a $325 million to 400 million budget. "Avatar: The Way of the Water" reaching $2.024 billion has made the film the sixth highest-grossing movie of all time.

The first "Avatar" movie took 47 days after its December 2009 release to reach and cross the $2 billion benchmark. In comparison, "Avatar: The Way of Water" used only 37 days to do so. "Avengers: Endgame" is currently the fastest to reach $2 billion, doing so in 11 days, while "Titanic" was the longest with 5,233 days.

The tremendous success of "Avatar: The Way of Water" means that fans can expect more from the "Titanic" actor. Earlier, Cameron revealed that he plans to release three more "Avatar" movies in 2024, 2026, and 2028. The release of the last two, however, is heavily dependent on the performance of "The Way of Water" at the box office.

Prior to it reaching $2 billion, the filmmaker joined HBO Max's "Who's Talking to Chris Wallace?" where he revealed that he would go forward with the final two sequels. He said per The Wrap, "It looks like with the momentum that the film has now that we'll easily pass our break even in the next few days, so it looks like I can't wiggle out of this and I'm gonna have to do these other sequels."

The director added, "I know what I'm going to be doing the next six or seven years." Cameron previously mentioned just how expensive making movies cost, noting it was "very f***ing expensive."

Previously, Metro revealed that Cameron wanted the "Avatar" sequel to become one of the highest-grossing movies. The director clarified that, saying several people had taken his comments differently, thinking that the film needed to amass $2 billion (£1.65 billion) and reach the top 10 biggest movies to break even.

Cameron explained, "[I] never actually gave it a number. I said it would have to be among the highest-grossing films in history, and somebody else applied that number, and it got picked up. The number is actually less."

The director further revealed that he intended to get into discussions with Disney concerning the upcoming installment, "Avatar 3." "We've already captured and photographed the whole film, so we're in extended post-production to do all that CG magic," Cameron said. "And then Avatar 4 and 5 are both written. We even have some of 4 in the can."