Welcome to the club: Film director James Cameron is officially a billionaire after 40 years of making blockbuster movies

James Cameron is no stranger to making big bets on films that pay off. Of the top five highest-grossing movies of all time, the 71-year-old director has made three of them.

Collectively, his films have earned almost $9 billion at the box office worldwide. His share of that along with other sources of income and wealth has officially made him a billionaire after forty years in the business according to Forbes.

James Cameron becomes the fifth billionaire filmmaker

The director behind the ‘Avatar’ franchise now has a net worth of $1.1 billion according to the financial magazine, just ahead the theatrical release of ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’, the third installment in the sci-fi saga. And if that film realizes its predicted potential of grossing over $2 billion, that will add another $200 million to his fortune notes Forbes, before taxes and fees that is.

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Forbes tally of Cameron’s net worth took into account his “salaries, profit participations, licensing revenues for theme parks and toys, and equity value from his production company Lightstorm Entertainment.”

Those assets and sources of income says Forbes “more than make up the difference” when the financial magazine accounted for the filmmaker’s “extensive underwater exploration, conservationist philanthropy and real estate transactions—plus his long track record of sacrificing or risking his personal paychecks to maintain creative control.”

Crossing the billion-dollar threshold puts the one-time college dropout into a very small club of filmmakers who have managed to do so. They include Steven Spielberg ($7.1bn), George Lucas ($5.3bn), Peter Jackson ($1.7bn) and Tyler Perry ($1.4) says Forbes.

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