What gets audiences to fill the seats?

Cinema and motion picture has changed greatly throughout the years. From live action black and white film to hand drawn rubber hose animation that danced and bound across the screen, it finally reached the modern-day product of animation and live actors pieced together to create something stunning and beautiful for today’s audience. Television and movies have continued to hold their grip on media across the world, but it really makes one curious as to what the most well renowned pieces of said media are and what made them so popular in the first place? Who’s to say Avatar (2009) deserves it number one spot as the number one box office grossing movie of all time?

Avatar (2009) is the story of a marine who was sent to complete a unique mission assigned to only him on a moon called Pandora. When it comes down to it, he alone has to the make the decision between following the orders of his country and saving the place he now considers home. This movie was ambitious for its time to say the very least. While the plot can be considered played out and dull, the computer-generated imagery holds up even in today’s day and age. James Cameron, the director of Avatar (2009), had a vision, and he completed it well.

He had to wait for technology to catch up with the movie he saw in his mind, for when he first had this idea, CGI was leagues behind what the human brain can imagine. It wowed audiences not just across central America, but across the world with its beautiful eye-catching graphics and spectacular world-building.  The film continues to hold its number one spot at a total of $2,923,706,026 made in the box office.

Right behind in second place is Avengers: Endgame (2019) with $2,799,439,100 in the box office. Released one full year after its predecessor Avengers: Infinity War (2018), it’s story of vengeance and justice after the universe was left in ruin with half of all its residents disappeared as quickly as one could snap. The movie is a thrilling conclusion for all Marvel fans alike of a story that started in 2008 with the release of Iron-Man, though someone not as big on the franchise may not see it as such. The directors, James and Anthony Russo really wanted to make something grand to bring the Avengers story and Phase Three of Marvel to an end. Such a shame Phase Four kind of sucked, yeah?

Though Titanic(1997) was recently swept off of its number three spot of the top grossing movies of all time by Avatar: The Way of Water(2022), it held that spot for far too long to ignore. Titanic is an action-packed romance adventure set on the ship cursed by the narrative, the RMS Titanic. The movie was, oddly enough, also directed by James Cameron. It has a runtime of three hours and sixteen minutes, yet somehow it manages to keep the audience engaged through nearly the entire film. Granted it had it’s slow parts but doesn’t almost every feature film?

Titanic(1997) is definitely the odd one out of what is globally the arguably best movies. Avatar(2009), Avatar: The Way of Water, Avengers: Endgame(2019) and Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens(2015) follow fiction. It begs the question why something so historical is so important in cinema when fiction tends to be so popular.

For the same reason as Avatar(2009) surprisingly! The scale and accuracy of the ship that was used to record the film was mind-blowing to audiences at the time of its release. The mix of real life and computer-animated effects was revolutionary for its time. It’s good to remember that film and media has come a long way from where it has started. With technology improving at rapid speeds every year, such as full body suit tracking and computer animated graphics you feel like you could touch, how interesting is it that sometimes it all becomes indistinguishable from reality?