James Cameron’s Titanic is no longer the king of any world. On Tuesday the ship once again found itself running into something big and blue deep into the night, though this time it wasn’t an iceberg, it was the Navi.
After Tuesday’s box-office receipts were accounted for, it was made official that it took James Cameron himself to dethrone his previous blockbuster as Avatar finally crept by Titanic to claim the number one spot as the highest grossing film in North American history. It was only last week that the epic sci-fi film took the title as the top grossing movie worldwide, becoming the first film to ever cross the $2 billion mark, and now its victory is unanimous.
While ticket prices have inflated since Titanic‘s 1997 release, and higher prices for 3-D tickets can be taken into account, Avatar shows no signs of slowing down, and it’s still an achievement that can’t be denounced on any level.
It was said before that the Titanic was an unsinkable ship, and many thought that it was that arrogance is what caused the disaster to be so shocking, and unorganized. The same can also be said about how people thought both worldwide, and nationwide, that Titanic‘s records were unbreakable, the closest being 2008’s The Dark Knight which while recent, still found itself over $75 million away. While that may seem close, averaging what The Dark Knight took in during its final weeks, it would have taken it years upon years at the same pace, and still it likely wouldn’t have come close. To show once again just how popular Cameron’s films were, The Dark Knight just crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide before leaving theaters; and while this is a huge accomplishment, Avatar doubling that underlines the box-office power this film has had.
The question now is can Cameron beat himself once again with the release of Avatar 2, or will it be a new director, with a new story to tell that one day steals the crown? One thing is for sure, as of this day, James Cameron remains the king of the world, and all the box offices contained therein.
