'Avatar' sequel surpasses 'Titanic' as 3rd highest-grossing movie

James Cameron's “Avatar: The Way of Water," the first sequel to his 2009 blockbuster, has overtaken the filmmaker's own 1997 hit "Titanic" to claim third place on the all-time worldwide box office.

Tallying $2,244,435,991 in ticket sales as of Monday, the CGI science-fiction action epic is now surpassed only by "Avengers: Endgame" (2019) with $2,799,439,100 and, at top, Cameron's original "Avatar" with $2,923,905,528. Of the six movies that have earned $2 billion or more, Cameron has directed three, the sole filmmaker to do so.

In the North American market this weekend, “Avatar: The Way of Water" moved up a spot to No. 9, with its new domestic total of $658,456,991 overtaking "Jurassic World" (2015) by just over $5 million. Cameron has not commented publicly on the new box-office grosses. “James Cameron just continues to chase himself on the box office charts,” Shawn Robbins, the chief analyst at BoxOfficePro, told Variety. “He clearly knows how to engage a modern audience.”