15 Most Highly-Anticipated Blockbuster Movies In History

Avatar has taken a lot of flak over the years, but you don't become the most financially successful project in the history of cinema unless a lot of people are interested in seeing your movie.

With his last directorial effort being the record-shattering Titanic, people were already curious to see what James Cameron had spent the last decade working on, especially when the filmmaker was more than willing to shout from the rooftops about the 'revolutionary' technology that was being used to bring his vision to life.

As more footage and behind-the-scenes tidbits were made available to the public, hype levels began to rise as people wanted to find out whether Cameron had changed the game completely yet again, or fallen flat on his a**. What wasn't up for debate was the fact that everyone was going to have to catch Avatar on the biggest screen possible.

From a purely financial standpoint, Avatar lived up to the hype and then some, steamrolling through box office records to usurp Cameron's own Titanic as the biggest hit of all time with an eye-watering $2.8bn. Whatever weaknesses the story may have (and there are many), Avatar more than lived up to its director's promise to deliver a 3D cinematic experience like no other.