These days, it’s common for a big blockbuster to clear $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Now, that’s the standard turnover for a Marvel movie and billion-grossing efforts make up almost all of the top 50 highest-grossing films of all time. But it was once a rarity reserved for must-see movies like the finalHarry Potterentry orthe greatest Batman movie ever made.
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No movie cleared this bar until 1997 when James Cameron came along with a little movie calledTitanicand it wouldn’t become the norm for summer tentpoles to rake in this much money until the 2010s.
10Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($1,045,713,802)
After a lackluster threequel, thePirates of the Caribbeanfranchise really started to lose the plot in its fourth installment.On Stranger Tidesditches virtually all connections to the past three movies, only keeping Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow long after the schtick had gotten old.
But enough fans still got a kick out of Depp’s performance to push the movie into the $1 billion club. The franchise wouldn’t underperform at the box office until the next movie,Dead Men Tell No Tales.
9Transformers: Dark Of The Moon ($1,123,794,079)
Michael Bay was the perfect director to adapt action figures into a movie, because his “Bayhem” filmmaking style is the cinematic equivalent of a kid playing with toys.
Although it’s a marked improvement over its predecessor,Revenge of the Fallen,Dark of the Moonstill falls into the same trappings of all Bay’sTransformersmovies: loud, bombastic, offensive, and proudly unsubtle.
8Alice In Wonderland ($1,025,467,110)
Before Jon Favreau’sThe Jungle Bookkickstarted a relentless barrage of live-action remakes of animated Disney classics, Tim Burton updatedAlice in Wonderlandwith his own bleak, gothic visual style.
Like many of the Disney remakes that would follow,Alice in Wonderlandis a visually stunning, but artistically vacant endeavor that fails to live up to its classic source material.
When a movie based on a theme park ride defied the odds to become Disney’s next big franchise, the Mouse House couldn’t wait to rush out a sequel.Dead Man’s Chestrelies on the supernatural elements more than its predecessor, but it’s still an action-packed spectacle.
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As a big-budget adventure movie harking back to swashbuckler classics,Dead Man’s Chestrecaptures more of the first movie’s magic than any of the subsequent sequels.
6Avatar ($2,744,336,793)
Due to its use of aPocahontas-esque story on a foreign planet populated with blue-skinned aliens, James Cameron’sAvatarwas mockingly nicknamed “Dances with Smurfs.” Sure, the plot is derivative and the environmentalist message is on-the-nose, but that wasn’t the attraction of this movie.
The reason whyAvatarbecame the highest-grossing movie of all time –a record it held untilAvengers: Endgamecame along– is that moviegoers were excited by its technological advancements. It was the most immersive, cutting-edge CGI ever created.
5Titanic ($2,127,488,188)
James Cameron only promised 20th Century Fox a movie about the sinking of the Titanic because he wanted the studio to pay for him to explore the shipwreck. With a ballooning budget accommodating the construction of half a ship, many industry pundits expectedTitanicto bomb, and the premise already provided them with a perfect metaphor to describe box office failure.
And then it hit theaters and became the first film in history to gross over $1 billion worldwide. It broke that record with such oomph that it almost made it to $2 billion, a bar it would later clear with subsequent re-releases.
4Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 ($1,341,511,219)
Setting a trend that continues to affect book adaptations to this day, the producers of theHarry Potterfranchise decided to split the final book,Deathly Hallows, into two movies. After getting all the exposition out of the way in the first part, the second could focus on the Battle of Hogwarts.
Eight years beforeAvengers: Endgamedid the same thing,Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2concluded a long-running franchise with an action-packed epic thatfeels like a hugely satisfying series finale.
3The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King ($1,140,682,011)
Peter Jackson took a huge risk withThe Lord of the Ringstrilogy. There was no guarantee that this lofty, thought-provoking high fantasy epic would attract any moviegoers, and Jackson was shooting three big-budget movies back-to-back banking on their success.
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Of course, as it turned out, the financiers had nothing to worry about.The Lord of the Ringsmovies were praised by critics as ranking among the greatest ever made. All three of them were box office hits and the third one,The Return of the King, became the second ever movie to gross over $1 billion worldwide.
2The Dark Knight ($1,005,973,645)
After saving Bruce Wayne’s big-screen adventures from their post-Batman & Robinslump with the refreshing gritty realism ofBatman Begins, Christopher Nolan really pushed the boat out for the sequel,The Dark Knight,arguably the Bat’s greatest on-screen outing to date.
Obviously, the star of the show here is Heath Ledger’s chilling Oscar-winning portrayal of the Joker, but the movie as a whole isa poignant post-9/11 noir about the fear of terrorismthat happens to take place in Gotham City.
1Toy Story 3 ($1,066,969,703)
In the summer of 2010, a decade after the franchise’s last installment,Toy Story 3managed to pull in more money at the box office than its two predecessors combined. It was the first Pixar movie to gross over $1 billion.
Although its perfect ending was undermined byToy Story 4nine years later,Toy Story 3provided fans of the franchise with plenty of closure in what was supposed to be the final chapter.
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