James Cameron is already dominating the box office thanks to Avatar: The Way of Water, but the director can add yet another accolade to his ever-growing list. Titanic has been re-released in cinemas to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film’s original release back in 1997.
In many ways, it is therefore ironic that at the same time, Titanic has been knocked from its position as the third highest-grossing movie of all time, and the film could be heading back to the top of the box office. That would make Titanic the first movie in 25 years to hit the #1 spot as a re-release, the last being the Star Wars special editions, which coincidentally happened in the same year as Titanic’s first round of box office success.
According to figures from Box Office Mojo, Titanic has already managed to lead the pack on Friday, beating out last week’s chart champ Knock at the Cabin and the mighty Avatar: The Way of Water, whose audience-pulling power is finally starting to wane. If Titanic can pull in around $10 million over the weekend, it would easily end up claiming the weekend box office for one week before the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania next weekend.
While a $10 million box office is not by any means ground-breaking, the achievement would once again remind people that James Cameron movies are not just one-time viewing experiences. Clearly, audiences are happy to return to theaters to see the director’s older movies on the big screen.
James Cameron is the Most Successful Director Ever in Terms of Highest Grossing Movies
While there are directors who have been more prolific and others who have been more successful in terms of volume of hits, very few will ever have the chance to match James Cameron regarding his position on the highest-grossing movies of all-time chart.
With Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Titanic, Cameron currently has the 1st, 3rd, and 4th highest-grossing movies of all time to his name, and all of them have taken more than $2 billion at the worldwide box office. As the only director to achieve the feat, and with three more Avatar movies to come, it will be a long time before anyone can even come close to matching what he has achieved over the last several decades.
While Cameron has hinted that he may decide not to direct all of his Avatar sequels and could pass directing duties on to someone so he can look at other projects, that is far from certain. In the end, who wouldn’t want the chance to be the director of half of the top ten highest-grossing movies ever? But, of course, that is something for a later date, as currently, Cameron is hard at work on Avatar 3, which is expected to arrive in cinemas in December 2024. This weekend, though, it looks like Cameron will be back at the top of the box once again unless another contender manages to sink his ship.
