Avatar has been simultaneously the highest-grossing film of all time and yet had almost no influence in the landscape of popular culture, which I find it incredibly amusing.
The highest grossing can be achieved with good timing , a huge marketing campaign and an all-star cast/director.
To really gather a sense of how much a movie influences the popular culture a better metric is people coming back to it to re-watch it.
So Repeat ticket sales (same person going to theatre multiple times) + DVD/BluRay sales + cable programming + TV + SVOD + piracy