Avatar: The Way Of Water Rises Past Star Wars: The Force Awakens Becomes The Fourth Greatest Movie Of All Time

Between 13 years of production and consecutive shoots with "Avatar 3" (and part of "Avatar 4"), calculating the quantity needed for "Avatar: The Way of the Water" to reach the break-even point was complicated (even more so than usual when it comes to Hollywood accounting). Insiders speculated it was in the black once it hit around $1.4 billion, but James Cameron himself raised the bar.

Describing the film as "very fucking [expensive]", Cameron said that when a film costs this much to make, "You must be the third or fourth highest grossing film in history. It's your threshold . This is your break-even point."

Cameron already acknowledged a while ago that 'Avatar: The Way of the Water' was successful enough that sequels were greenlit and kept him locked into making blue alien movies "for six or seven coming years". Still, there aren't many directors on the planet who could set the minimum goal of making the fourth greatest movie of all time and then actually do it.