Ready Player One's record-breaking China run makes Steven Spielberg first filmmaker to gross $10 bn worldwide

Celebrated American filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who has been at the helm of affairs in Hollywood for nearly five decades since his directorial debut with road thriller Duel, has accomplished a distinctive, peerless milestone at the global box office. As his latest visual effects extravaganza,  Ready Player One , is firmly advancing to the $500 million mark, Spielberg has become the first filmmaker in the history of cinema to pull in a lifetime revenue of more than $10 billion at the worldwide box office – unadjusted for inflation – through his 27 creations, listed by  Box Office Mojo. [caption id=“attachment_4374201” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A still from Steven Speilberg. YouTube[/caption] Spielberg’s global career total stands at a towering $10.01 billion without including a few of his directions such as Amistad, The Twilight Zone (Kick The Can segment), The Sugarland Express, Empire of the Sun and The Color Purple since they did not have a proper offshore release. His cumulative domestic gross from 33 films amounts to $4.65 billion, unadjusted for inflation. When the earnings are adjusted for ticket price inflation, Spielberg’s stateside cumulative gross from 33 films spirals upwards of $10.4 billion, which is $400 million more than the lifetime worldwide takings ($10 billion) of his 27 notable releases. Often hailed as Hollywood’s long standing, commercially successful filmmaker, Spielberg’s lifetime gross, if you include his productions, reaches a mammoth  $17.2 billion ­– unadjusted for inflation. The mighty $10 billion global total of films directed by Spielberg is 35 percent more than the second highest grossing filmmaker Peter Jackson, best known for delivering the lucrative franchise in Lord of the Rings series of films, with $6.52 billion. The third and fourth positions for top grossing directors are occupied by Michael Bay with $6.45 billion from 13 films – propelled by a cash cow franchise in the Transformers films – and James Cameron with $6.13 billion from nine films, of which Avatar ($2.77 billion) and Titanic ($2.12 billion) tot up to 80 percent of his lifetime gross. The original Jurassic Park ($983.8 million worldwide), which released in 1993, remains Spielberg’s highest grossing film. It is followed by the popular 2008 action adventure Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($786.6 million) and his most cherished classic E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial ($717 million) at second and third spots. Ready Player One, currently advancing at a running total of $476.1 million, has become Spielberg’s seventh highest grossing film of his career. The sci-fi adventure, starring Tye Sheridan in the central role, is the fourth highest grossing film of 2018 globally, only behind Disney/Marvel’s box-office phenomenon  Black Panther  ($1.31 billion) and Chinese films Operation Red Sea ($568 million) and Detective Chinatown 2 ($532 million). The Warner Bros production will soon surpass the $481.8 million lifetime box office receipts of Spielberg’s brutal war-epic Saving Private Ryan and emerge as his sixth highest grossing movie. Ready Player One has earned nearly 1.23 billion yuan ($196 million) in its 19-day run in China, where the local distributor has extended the film’s license until 29 May. Dethroning Aamir Khan’s Secret Superstar ($118 million), it has already become the highest earning import film of 2018 in the Middle Kingdom. It will eventually supplant Aamir’s 2017 blockbuster Dangal (1.29 billion yuan) if it achieves the Maoyan’s lifetime forecast of 1.31 billion yuan ($208 million) in the PRC. The sci-fi adventure’s next target is Disney/Marvel’s 2016 superhero blockbuster Captain America: Civil War which amassed a solid 1.24 billion yuan in mainland cinemas. If Ready Player One sustains well at the box office for the next two weeks, it may cross the 1.33 billion yuan Middle Kingdom cumulative of James Cameron’s smash hit Avatar to emerge as the 10th all time highest grossing import film of China. With its terrific box office run in the world’s second largest movie market, Ready Player One joins other Hollywood films such as  Tomb Raider , Pacific Rim: Uprising  and  Rampage  to open bigger in China than North America this year.