The movie industry is one of the highest profit earners in the entertainment industry. Movie directors and talents are releasing some seat-moving performances on the global stage. The market is quite receptive to new movies that take a divergent turn from the normal displays.
We live in an era where we witness some of the greatest minds in film, such as Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan, and Michael Bay, give us masterworks for the Box Office.
The rise of streaming is making the movie production world a lucrative one. More technologies such as Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Drones, and the Internet of Things are slowly being introduced on the main stage.
Staying at the top of the Box Office calls for heavy investment into the production line to meet the high standards and expectations of the masses. It is only fair to look at some masterpieces over the past two decades that make up the highest-grossing movies produced.
Some movies are instant classics yet to be replicated due to the sheer genius behind the production. The genius minds behind Avatar and Lion King deserve recognition for pushing the boundaries. Their works defined the movie industry at a time when most works were focused on mainline success.
History accounts will acknowledge their achievements, and incredible papers from a reputable online essay writing service will be crafted to celebrate their valuable contributions. Who cut? As numbers can’t lie, we based our findings on concrete evidence from the Box Office.
Avatar
It’s quite funny that the highest-grossing movie of our generation wasn’t based on a comic or book or followed a pre-determined cinematic universe. Also, the storyline involving U.S. soldiers getting subdued triggered a massive acceptance of Avatar.
James Cameron and John Landau were ahead of their time with the release of Avatar in 2009, which featured 3D effects. After over a decade of global dominance, Avatar still holds the record for the highest-grossing movie, with a lifetime gross of close to $2.74 billion.
The film broke the domestic record for a film in the opening weekend. It remained at the top of the charts on Box Office for consecutive weeks. Despite 14 years in the public, the film still resonates with the masses, pushing for a sequel in 2022.
James Cameron is the genius mastermind behind the film with an impressive track record in the industry. Having deep hands in Terminator and Alien, there was no doubt he could deliver on the grand stage with groundbreaking special effects technology.
Cameron long waited for new technology to hit the scene to create the masterpiece. Introducing a modified 3D camera and new visual effects gave Cameron real-time reactions to set the film.
Avengers Endgame
Half of the world’s population turned to dust, and a quest to end one of the world’s greatest villains hell-bent on restoring the natural balance. Avengers Endgame had huge shoes to fill to topple a global behemoth in Avatar.
Marvel movies for a long time resonated with the global audience with our childhood heroes from Ironman, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and Black Widow joining forces to save the world.
But this time, Kevin Feige has to think beyond the multiverse and try to re-engage and infuriate the audience over the loss of their favorite superheroes in Infinity War. The main course was a step back into the past to alter the future, where Thanos hasn’t collected the five gauntlets to snap half the population into dust.
Endgame is a cumulation of a 21-year struggle and high-octane action starting from the 2008 instalment of Iron Man. Fans had to catch up with the film to see the aftermath of Thanos’s snap.
Even though it doesn’t correspond to its Box Office earnings, Endgame remains the second most expensive movie produced, with a reported budget exceeding $400 million. Marvel went on a rampage with spillovers and one-story lines afterward, with the Avengers’ future still unknown.
Avatar: Way of Water
The immersive success of the first instalment of Avatar pushed for a global demand for a sequel. All things were set, and 2014 was earmarked as the perfect time for the second instalment of the high-grossing movie to hit the Box Office.
Avatar enthusiasts wait another decade later for the second sequel, Way of Water, to hit the big screens. The massive response to the film saw it overtake Titanic as the third-highest-grossing movie ever.
Like its predecessor, the sequel’s famed success is due to its revolutionary special effects and 3D formats. Both Disney and 20th Century spent close to $460 million in the production phase and promotion of the film.
The meteoric rise of the film pushed for talks of a third instalment set to debut in December 2024. Given the experience with the previous instalment, it’s better not to have high hopes with the given dates.
Titanic
James Cameron continues gracing the scene of high-grossing movies with his third accolade under his belt in Titanic. During the late 90s, Titanic was the biggest blockbuster movie, amassing up to $1.8 billion during its initial run at the helm. Amid such great cinematic achievements, those eager to delve into the mindset behind the pure ingeniousness of the cinematic masterpiece may find a wealth of insights by opting to pay for research paper at EssayWriter.org.
The film held the record at the top for 12 consecutive years before Cameron’s brainchild, Avatar, came onto the scene. At the time, an epic depiction of the sinking Titanic with heartthrob sensations such as Leonardo Di Carpio and Kate Winslet was enough to be a Box Office bomb.
The starting budget for the film stood at $210 million and accrued an estimated profit of up to $1.4 billion. It was the most expensive film ever produced at the time of its release. Given the revamp of old movie trends, a 2012 3D revamp of the film earned over $2 billion.
The re-release was in honor of the film’s 25th Anniversary and amassed up to $22 million at the Global Box Office.
Star Wars: Episode V11 – The Force Awakens
The decision by Disney to release the sequel trilogy, Starwards – The Force Awakens, was met with much controversy from the cinematic universe. Star Wars is an established brand that spans back to the late 1970s.
It is one of the longest-running franchises and has accumulated many accolades during its tenure. Disney decided to push the boundaries of imagination and filmmaking with innovative visual effects.
It was a tough job to undo how George Lucas’ trilogy impacted the franchise, but Disney proceeded with a large investment in making a masterclass for the century. The film’s release garnered up to $2 billion on its initial run.
Released in 2015, it became the highest-grossing movie of the year. Despite some subsequent releases from the trilogy that took off the shine, such as Skywalker, it remains the fifth highest-grossing movie of all time.
It set a precedent that the upcoming instalments will struggle to keep up with. Moreover, the franchise is under threat due to its entanglement with Disney. The under-pressure movie production studio followed three years later with Solo: A Star Wars story that failed to appeal to the masses.
Avengers: Infinity War
Avengers Endgame might have set the pedestal too high for other Marvel movies to follow suit. But we can’t deny the impact of Infinity War in gearing us towards the second-highest-grossing film of all time.
The world superheroes join forces one time to save the world from Thanos. The film lived up to the hype, with numerous action scenes and heroic moments appealing to the audience. The ending to the film leaves us in utter shock and disbelief as we witness half of the world’s pushing fade away to dust after Thanos’ snaps.
A distraught Iron Man and the Avengers team are divided by the sheer villain of Thanos, whose power speaks volumes of his immense presence in the comic books.
Infinity War made history as the fourth movie to cross the $2 billion mark at the Box Office. Also, it was the first superhero comic movie to achieve such status. It took Marvel 19 attempts at the Box Office with the movie franchise to reach this milestone.
Previous character-focused films such as Black Panther, Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor weren’t enough to beat the mark.
Spiderman: No Way Home
The second Marvel movie to debut in the list is Kevin Feige’s Spiderman: No Way Home. It tools the same Avenger’s Endgame storyline of joining forces to defeat greater evil by combining Tom Holland, Toby Maguire, and Andrew Garfield.
Also, it combined some of the classic villains such as Green Goblin, Doc Ock, Sandman, Lizard, and Electro.
It was a sense of nostalgia for the fans as a reunion of their favorite Spidermans made sense. Given their off-screen entanglements, the romantic escapades with Zendaya only thickened the plot.
In 2021, the film became the top-earning movie, surpassing the $1 billion mark at the Box Office. Moreover, experts believe it could have done extra well were it not for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Final Words
The cinematic world is truly a marvel to watch. New technologies are pushing the boundaries of our imaginations. It is quite promising how a film can still amass over the $2 billion mark two decades later. It is a true testimony of the hard work behind the scenes to ensure these films succeed. Also, we’d like to give honorable mentions to Jurrasic World, Lion King, Frozen, and Avengers.
