'Avatar' and 'Titanic': Four Reasons They Became Mega Movie Hits

Not the movie itself -- which, if you haven't seen, means you're either wholly immune to peer pressure and/or uninterested in wearing flimsy frames to watch blue creatures run around for nearly three hours -- but its success, its astonishing success, is a little scary.

"Avatar's" earnings have reached proportions so massive, it wouldn't be a shock if the movie turned into a living, breathing creature that threatened to occupy all screens everywhere until the end of time (not unlike Jay Leno).

Just kidding. James Cameron's latest Golden-Globe-award-winning epic is on pace to eclipse his last epic, "Titanic," with its ever-rising box office earnings.

As of Thursday afternoon, "Avatar's" global gross earnings totaled more than $1.68 billion, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, putting it a relative hair away from "Titanic's" $1.8 billion, the greatest global gross in movie history. (It ought to be noted that if inflation were taken into account, "Titanic's" haul would total $2.4 billion in today's dollars.)