The Hobbit makes it 15 at $1 billion

This week The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey nudges it's way past the $1 Billion world box office taking mark making it 15th film that has made it past the milestone.

This is an interesting group of films but the group is becoming less and less elite as time goes on, like the magic $100 million mark of time past.

The first film to manage the feat was Titanic back in 1998, and it held the record as the only film to have done it until 2003 when The Return of the King managed it. Since then, and with the introduction of 3D where you are charged more for your ticket, we have had 13 other films make the grade.

Of the 15, 8 had a 3D releases as well as a 2D release, 4 were released in 2012, 2 have made over $2 Billion, 1 made it over the billion mark after it's 3D re-release last year, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and 1 was released in about 6 different formats.

The $1 Billion club is bound to grow and grow so chart watchers are now looking for the next flurry of films to make over $2 Billion, a hard task of which only 1 film has truly made it without a re-release, but that had a 3D tax, Avatar.

These figures are not adjusted for inflation in ticket prices, this is a hotly debated subject, but it is generally accepted that the highest grossing film of all time if ticket sales had always been at today's prices would be Gone With the Wind, whic would today gross $3.2 Billion at the box office, in fact the top 15 would look something more like this

1. Gone with the Wind
2. Avatar
3. Titanic
4. Star Wars
5. The Lion King
6. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
7. Jurassic Park
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
9. Jaws
10. The Exorcist
11. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
12. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
13. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
15. Independence Day