It was a moment that went down in Oscars history when James “Jim” Cameron won the Best Director award for the 1998 disaster film Titanic. He ended his acceptance speech with the sentence: “I am the king of the world” – and then broke out in wild cheers. This was a reference to a scene from the film when lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio stands at the bow of the ship and roars those very words. Some found Cameron’s performance embarrassing, but he had cause for exuberance. Against much resistance and at a cost well in excess of the planned budget, he delivered the most successful film in history up to that point, and the Oscar brought him artistic recognition as a director.
What he couldn’t have known at the time: he himself would dethrone “Titanic” with his next film, even if it would take some time until then. In 2009, he released the sci-fi adventure Avatar, which grossed $2.9 billion worldwide. It remains unmatched to this day, but the sequel “Avatar – The Way of Water”, which has been in cinemas since December, has also turned out to be a big hit commercially.