2. Avatar (2009)
James Cameron first came up with the idea for what would become the highest grossing movie of all time, 2009's Avatar, in 1994 but had to wait for technology to catch up to his vision. By 2005 motion capture technology had advanced enough that Cameron decided to develop his treatment for Avatar into a feature-length script. When Cameron began filming Avatar, he utilized the most advanced motion capture technology available. Avatar used a motion capture stage to capture the totality of the actors performance when portraying the ten foot tall alien race called Na'vi; in an unprecedented feat, Cameron's actors wore skull caps that captured their facial expression, improving on the motion capture techniques popularized by The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Cameron tapped the maestros at Weta to bring his vision to fruition, and the effects company hired an additional 900 employees to complete the task. The sheer amount of data that the motion capture stage produced necessitated that Microsoft develop a new digital storage system specifically for Avatar's production. Cameron shot the live action with a 3D Fusion Camera System he helped developed and merged the live action footage with footage created by virtual cameras. Avatar's unprecedented technological feats created a wholly immersive 3D experience. The results spoke for themselves and audiences flocked to Avatar in droves, revisiting Cameron and his collaborators' digital world again and again, eventually propelling Avatar to a world-wide gross of over 2 billion dollars.