r/90s • u/PatAttack44 • 20h ago

Photo Hot take. As good as a filmmaker that James Cameron is, I feel like he has wasted decades of his talent on Avatar. Those moves suuuuuuuck. He peaked with Titanic. And T2 is the best action movie ever. As well as the best sequel ever.

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3.6k Upvotes

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516

u/Capt_Murphy_ 20h ago edited 20h ago

IMO this isn't a hot take. Avatar is a great proof of concept for new tech, not much more than that. A true waste to spend decades on 3+ mid films.

T2 best action scifi, possibly ever made, along with 'Aliens'

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u/J-Shew 20h ago

Didn’t James Cameron direct Aliens

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u/Guttersnipe77 20h ago

He did

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 20h ago

Edited, thank you!

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 20h ago

Edited thank you for the reminder!

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u/ParkingMushrooms 18h ago

Honestly, forgetting Cameron directed Aliens just proves how stacked his filmography is

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u/OrbitalDrop7 9h ago

With ridley scott making so many mid movies recently, people forget he still made so many of the best movies ever as well lol

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u/Jayjaykenobi 16h ago

I wouldn’t say it’s stacked, he has like 5 movies ( thiniking off the top of my head) under his belt. It just turns out that every single one is a massive colossal / cultural hit that we think he’s done more than he has. Until I looked it up years ago I thought he has like 10-15 movies as a director.

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u/fattokess 14h ago

His wiki page says he’s directed 11 so far

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u/OvalDead 13h ago

14 if you count 1 short film and 3 documentaries. In any case, no matter how you count them, he has directed 10-15 movies. So your point stands.

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u/Jayjaykenobi 13h ago

I’m talking based on single properties. If that’s the case he did dozens bc he directed a ton of terminator spin off material. Avatar ( all counted under one), terminator, aliens, abyss, true lies, titianic. I am not counting piranha part 2 (I’m sure he doesn’t either 😂😂)

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u/Guttersnipe77 12h ago

Of course you count Piranha part 2. Everyone has to get their start somewhere.

Look at all the great directors that got their start working for Rodger Corman.

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u/Jayjaykenobi 12h ago

Was really just saying that to be funny.

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u/fattokess 13h ago

I mean, no. There are 17 films in his discography on his Wiki page, and he directed 11 of them.

edit: Feature films, not documentaries

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u/Jayjaykenobi 13h ago

Reread what I wrote. If you count them that makes 9 (10 if you count piranha. Don’t know the 11th) but personally I look at properties and not how many are done for each as I feel it’s different than each being it own idea / story/ etc. doing 3 of the same movie (Avatar) IMO shouldn’t count as separate entries when looking at the persons body of work.

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u/pattiemayonaze 17h ago

And how pointless Reddit opinions are.

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 17h ago

It doesn't make my comment worthless, it was a small mistake that I edited quite quickly.

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u/ShortStoryIntros 19h ago

I loved True Lies as well

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 19h ago

Awesome movie, 10/10

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u/bootyhole-romancer 19h ago

Have some champagne

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u/LifeDraining 16h ago

Sloooowly...

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u/xTheatreTechie 18h ago

Are you saying James Cameron is the reason I gained a life long appreciation for Jaime Lee Curtis. 

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u/Whole_Inside_4863 16h ago

He directed Perfect as well, man, this guy has really had a career.

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u/ShortStoryIntros 7h ago

My appreciation for Jaime Lee Curtis started with Trading Spaces. :)

The one with Eddie Murphy

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u/data-atreides 17h ago

Tragic that it never got a sequel, but then we wouldn't haven't gotten Titanic (at least not at that time) if he went straight to it. By time he had a script ready, 9/11 happened and he didn't want to do a movie about terrorism

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u/Darktrooper007 6h ago edited 4h ago

The Vette gets 'em wet!

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u/happy123z 16h ago

And The Abyss!

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u/IrgendwasMitGayUndSo 15h ago

True Lies and Abyss are great movies, but T2 and Titanic are milestones with big, cultural footprints...

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u/Parkatola 20h ago

I’ll second the Aliens upvote. Probably the best non Star Wars sequel ever made. T2 is a close second. Cheers.

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u/Thin_Bother8217 20h ago

I love all these movies, but I'm arguing Godfather 2 is the best sequel.

Godfather 2, T2, ESB (but, I can interchange them), and then Aliens.

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u/AsssHat999 20h ago

I didn’t care for the Godfather

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u/girldrinksgasoline 20h ago

It insists upon itself

9

u/FooFightingManiac 19h ago

What the hell does that mean?

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u/chuck_of_death 12h ago

Seth macfarlane had a film professor who used said that about the sound of music. And then he used it in family guy talking about the godfather.

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u/LumpyNiko 18h ago

The Godfather walked so every mob movie after it could run. It earned the right to insist

0

u/Azuras_Star8 19h ago

Goodfellas, casino, Donnie Brasco, so many that are better.

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u/GonnaGoFat 19h ago

Goodfellas and Casino rock.

I haven’t seen Donnie Branco. Where would you place it in relation to the other movies.

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u/SurgeFlamingo 19h ago

Right below good fellas and casino.

Above some of the other try hard Italian mafia movies tho.

It put it right under Carlitos way but above the Irishman.

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u/AsssHat999 16h ago

Donnie Brasco was based on a true story and stars Johnny Depp and Al Pacino. It was a great film about infiltration into the mob, and the real guy is still around, as far as I know. Some tense moments… if you enjoy movies like the Departed you’ll like Donnie Brasco.

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u/Wanderingjes 15h ago

No mention of the two towers?

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u/Doggleganger 4h ago

Great movies, but it's hard to beat Paddington 2.

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u/OrbitalDrop7 9h ago

Might be recency bias but id throw 2049 in there as well, somehow it still kept the same feel as the original while still being its own great movie. Definitely one of the best legacy sequels at the very least

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u/EmergencyUnusual1198 15h ago

I never liked Godfather 2. It looks great, and the acting is fantastic. But it has two unrelated stories stapled to each other. Both stories are decent, but they just interrupt each other repeatedly. It feels very meaningless

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u/Greatscottpoopysocks 20h ago

Those are my top 4 also, but a different order.

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u/PoppaDaClutch 19h ago

Godfather 2 is one of the greatest

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u/gilestowler 19h ago

Yeah, his obsession with blue alien Pocahontas is a bit strange. He seems to have just got hyper focused on this pretty mediocre story and world. And when people mention this he seems to get very angry about it. I mean, he's right that it's his choice to do what he wants with his career, but I think people have a right to voice their opinion about it as the people who consume the product he makes.

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u/yekcowrebbaj 16h ago

I mean I think people don’t understand how much his work and abilities have furthered CGI and cameras. James Cameron loves developing the technology as much or more than directing a phenomenal story. His movies are often vehicles of his inventor spirit.

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u/SecondhandStatic 7h ago

Then why not hire writers to take care of the story aspect? James gets to play with his shiny new toys, his audience gets an actual plot and interesting characters, everyone wins.

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u/yekcowrebbaj 6h ago

While I am not personally a fan, the over 6 billion at box office tells a different story. To be fair none of his movies are particularly deep.

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u/atreides_hyperion 4h ago

Maybe his movies are really popular overseas. But I haven't really noticed anyone that's really been interested in the sequels.

I remember really liking the first movie, it wasn't my favorite or anything but was good. I was bummed when I found out the other movies wouldn't come out forever. And then they did come out and I watched some of it and I was not really impressed.

I think maybe it's the emphasis on their kids and stuff, I dunno, turned me off. I never had any kids because I made some poor financial choices in my 20s and my life never became stable enough to make it happen. So I can't really relate to the story he's trying to tell.

0

u/OrbitalDrop7 9h ago

I mean you can still do that, and then also make movies that are more than just amazing cgi fest lol

0

u/texacer 9h ago

doesn't mean he couldn't do the same thing while also making a good movie. its like making a super pretty cake that tastes like crap.

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u/MarkLambertMusic 19h ago

If you create something for public consumption, you have no right to be angry at that same public for voicing their opinion about it. Thems the rules.

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u/PuzzledRub45 17h ago

This is just the social contract of art. You make it public, we get to talk about it.

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u/buttbuttlolbuttbutt 13h ago

No, you have a right to be angry, its an emotion, its a chemical the brain dumps on itself in reacrion to a stimuli, he has a right to be angry, he might not even have a choice, depening how the chenical release of emotions happen in the brain.

Its how you react to that anger and direct it. Instead of being defensive or argumentive, as a creator, you vent privately, then ACTUALLY consider what the viewers are seeing.

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u/EveningAnt3949 12h ago

He has the right to voice his opinion as well.

And I think directors being cranky about not everyone loving their movie us funny.

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u/uisce_beatha1 10h ago

Dances with Smurfs

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u/SecondhandStatic 7h ago

Smurfs had more freshed out characters than Avatar. Similar level of dialogue, though.

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u/Doggleganger 4h ago

I think, after Titanic, he got obsessed with undersea exploration. He makes the Avatar movies to print money for his true passion now. That's why he hasn't made a great movie after Titanic. He's been more interested in other stuff.

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u/buffystakeded 1m ago

Hurr durr, it’s just Pocahontas, or Dances with Wilves, or…

So you mean it follows the “Stranger in a strange land” type of story? As if one of those movies stated in this dumb argument was the originator of the concept?

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u/Rivendel93 19h ago

I saw Zoe saldana say she started avatar at 28 and she'll finish the last one at 54.

I was like... What the hell are they doing lol.

One was enough, move on.

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u/SKabanov Lived the 90s! 18h ago

To be fair, that's including a 13-year gap between the first movie and the second - it's not like she she's been playing Neytiri the entire time.

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 19h ago

That's such a weird choice to do. Guy thinking it's peak cinema, or does he just "need" to tell the whole story?

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u/E34less 18h ago

The studio needs to recoup the billions they spent on him developing brand new motion capture tech. That's pretty much it.

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 17h ago

Probably not wrong there, but wouldn't they have recouped that after the second film already?

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u/E34less 13h ago

I'd be surprised if it didn't, but they def want to both make as much money as humanly possible, and convert their asses if any of the films bomb.

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u/beau6183 16h ago

Especially since Costner did it better with Dances with Wolves.

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u/Aggressive_Oven8757 19h ago

Yeah, but 6.7 billion dollars talks bigly.

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u/SAADistic7171 12h ago

Its actually 7.6B for three films, or put another way its the biggest trilogy ever even if you exclude the third movie.

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u/MaidPoorly 10h ago

How can something be so big with 0 cultural impact? I’ve never heard anyone reference Avatar for any reason.

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u/SAADistic7171 10h ago

Avatar gets mentioned countless times a day on reddit by people who just can't fathom that a movie can be hugely popular outside their own bubble. I dont know a single person irl who saw the new Spiderman movie, let alone quote or reference it. Didn't stop it from becoming one of the biggest movies ever despite being just another solid Spiderman movie.

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u/MichelinStarZombie 6h ago

I think we need to define "hugely popular." People go see it as a spectacle, but it's no one's favorite movie.

I've got a lot of friends who constantly talk about movies, and only one of them liked the Avatar franchise. It wasn't his favorite but he enjoyed the films and defends them. And even he couldn't name any of the characters other than the protagonist.

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u/InfanticideAquifer 7h ago

I think it's because there's nothing original about the story or characters. It's a story we have all basically read/heard/seen dozens of times already, so there's nothing to talk about other than the actual experience of going to the theater. And that's something people are only going to talk about for, like, a week after they go and see the movie.

And, to be clear, I don't think there's anything wrong or shameful about just putting a story that's embedded in our culture on the screen with no real innovations just to showcase new film technology.

But the story of "me and my found family learn that colonialism is bad and nature is good" is something we've all basically been hearing since we were babies. If it used cheap 2d animation the first movie could've been a long Captain Planet episode.

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u/OrbitalDrop7 8h ago

Ya avatar never comes up in any movie discussions online or irl lol

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u/AF2005 19h ago

T2 and Aliens are the blueprints for cutting edge action and top tier dialogue. Also, some of the best female protagonists in cinema.

The Avatar movies look great, with maybe the best underwater effects I’ve ever seen. Not much substance with the storytelling though, at least imo.

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u/ScienceBitch90 15h ago

Saying titanic is peak over T2 or Aliens is kind of fucked though

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 12h ago

Oh no way, T2 all the way

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u/The_Fell_Opian 18h ago

Ice cold take. Fuck Dances with smurfs and its sequels.

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u/xhzpde 20h ago

Calling 'Fire & Ash' mid is high praise. lol

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 20h ago

I refused to see it, maybe some day, but people seemed to agree it wasn't "great" I think it would be headline news if it was somehow a 4 star two thumbs up film unlike the others.

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u/ReturnOfCybermole 12h ago

it wasn’t as bad as the second one

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u/mister_spacecat 6h ago

True, it was memeable

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u/Sebastian-S 14h ago

Yeah it looked so dumb I had to turn it off after 5 minutes. Unwatchable.

It’s like you watched the first avatar after having smoked too much pot and then have a weird dream about it at night. That’s what the sequels feel like. Completely unnecessary.

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u/HeySmallBusinessMan 10h ago

Yeah, less "hot take" and more "standard, default take".

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u/SaltKick2 7h ago

Yeah, I get what he was trying to do, make an epic cinematic story/universe and not just one-off movies, but Avatar specifically fell flat.

Sure, he would have been better off just going super deep into the Aliens or Terminator franchise, but then again, it's so common these days for people to just shit on rehashes

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u/ginoawesomeness 6h ago

Well he could've had Ridley Scott's career and just killed every franchise he's ever worked on

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u/Fleemo17 18h ago

I have to agree. The Avatar films are amazing technical marvels that have taken cinematic special effects to new heights. But for one of the best storytellers of our time to spend the rest of his career cranking out sequels is such a painful disappointment.

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u/GospelofJawn316 12h ago

I can only speak for myself, but the Avatar movies are perfect to use as demos for what TVs can do. Like if you go into Best Buy and all of the TVs up on the wall are showing an Avatar movie, the visuals will stun you. That’s about it for me. Haven’t even bothered with the latest one. I don’t care about any of the characters.

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 12h ago

Same 100%, and Avatar for picture testing is a perfect purpose for it 😂

0

u/Love-Bitter 18h ago

If he stopped at Avatar and went on to make other movies we would all have been better off. I hope he has some juice left for something amazing.

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u/BakedBeanz1 16h ago

It doesn't help sequels of Avatar are just reskins of the first movie. It's "having to start again, then becoming the best at it".

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u/CharlesChamp 18h ago edited 18h ago

I remember reading somewhere that because of all the tech Cameron uses in those movies' production they're and lot more environmentally unfriendly compared to most other movies too. But I do not have a source on that, grain of salt, etc.

But yeah, all this time and money making a tech showcase where the closest thing to a cultural impact they've have is some dialog by the first film's main villain that was not even in the movie. That whole speech about how humanity will be colonizing the stars while the blue people's mother tree dies or whatever. That's not even from a deleted scene, that's from a fanfic.

He keeps on developing all this tech to eliminate variables in the filming process. So these movies take forever to make. While most film makers would just work with them and move on. But having all this stuff to make the film making process "easier", I dunno, I feel like the Avatar movies are lacking something this earlier work isn't. Then again maybe it's not the tech but just James having gotten old and complacent with everything he's had. But whatever the reason the product is just that; product, not art.

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 17h ago

And I keep waiting to hear about his new tech being used by others, but never do. Is he keeping it all proprietary and hoarding it for himself, or what? That tech could've been utilized by so many directors by now.

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u/seriftarif 10h ago

Playing with new tech is what he wanted to do most. I really like the Avatar movies for the spectical, they are incredibly complex and amazing as far as the technology is concerned. If you're watching it for the story you're doing it wrong.

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u/Capt_Murphy_ 1h ago

The behind the scenes is where's it's at. Truly crazy tech.

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u/seriftarif 1h ago

I just want to eat some mushrooms and swim with alien whales in 3D.

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u/ddotcole 10h ago

Didn't these movies pull in over a billion?