$441 million in 2004/$666 million adjusted (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images) Getty Images LOS ANGELES, CA - MAY 8: (L to R) Actors Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas and Julie Andrews attend the Los Angeles premiere of the Dreamworks Pictures' film 'Shrek 2' at the Mann Village Theatre in Westwood, California. in 2008, where they still managed to eventually create one of the only post- Avengers cinematic universe success stories with The Conjuring. The three Lord of the Rings films were all massive hits, but the trilogy capper won Best Picture and Best Director along with nine other Oscars and became just the second film ever to top $1 billion in global grosses. It essentially set the template for modern fantasy blockbuster filmmaking with Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed, Oscar-winning J.R.R. It had its finger on the pulse of youth-skewing pop culture with films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Mask, Mortal Kombat, Austin Powers, Blade and Rush Hour. $377 million in 2003/$577 million adjustedīob Shaye’s groundbreaking indie studio came into its own in the 1980s (thanks to A Nightmare on Elm Street, which gained it the nickname “The House That Freddy Built”) and 1990s (after being acquired by Time Warner).

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (New Line Cinema) Oh, and if you want to count Summit Entertainment for the few years during which it was independent before being bought by Lionsgate in 2012, The Twilight Saga: New Moon ($296 million in 2009) and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse ($300 million in 2010) both earned around $366 million in adjusted sales. It’s frankly less blasé about the whole “cheer for the heroes hiss at the villains” element that made The Hunger Games grotesquely crowd-pleasing, which makes it a more compelling and honest popcorn entertainment. It still offered its share of bread-and-circuses pageantry amid a “tournament of champions” hook that pitted younger Hunger Games victors with previous winners who were much older (if not outright elderly).

With a second-half shot on IMAX film (back when that was still a somewhat rare practice for tentpoles), the Francis Lawrence-directed installment was less conventionally “hero’s journey” than the first installment. The second installment of the blockbuster Katniss Everdeen YA fantasy actioner proved its most popular and arguably most acclaimed.

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