Who is the highest-grossing debut director?

Note: All information on box office come from BoxOfficeMojo, and was gathered by simply working my way down the list of highest grossing films of all time and checking who directed them, and if they'd previously directed anything else.

Using those figures, the highest grossing film from a first-time director would be 2013's Frozen, which was directed by first-time director Jennifer Lee alongside Chris Buck, who had directed both Tarzan and Surf's Up before he worked on Frozen. Frozen is the seventh highest grossing film ever made, earning $1.276 billion worldwide.

If you are looking for films where all the directors were first time directors, however, then the answer comes from this year's Deadpool, which was directed by first-time director Tim Miller and is the 64th highest grossing movie of all time, earning $760.3 million worldwide.

As per source for best directional debut, it is Tim Miller who directed Deadpool that grossed over $782.6 million.

Timothy "Tim" Miller is an American film director and visual effects artist. He made his feature film directing debut with Deadpool (2016).

Thanks to @nwellnhof. According to calculatorgames.info, the worldwide gross of Grease is $1,203,866,872 when adjusted for inflation. This source puts Grease slightly above Frozen and seems to be accurate and up-to-date.

As per this article, it is Randal Kleiser, but this article is 5 years old one.

The directorial debut of Randal Kleiser (who knew?) – remains the top grossing directorial debut of all time, whether one adjusts for inflation or not. Kleiser – who had previously directed TV Movies “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” (1976), ‘The Gathering” (1977) and “Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway” (1976) – went on to direct numerous other feature films after “Grease,” including “The Blue Lagoon,” “Honey, I Blew Up the Kid” and “It’s My Party.”

Here is the list.

Here’s the overall top ten; figures are for North America only and not adjusted for inflation. Animated films were not included due to their tendency to have multiple directors and the fact that they would have dominated the list.

1. Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) – $188,389,888
2. Dances With Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990) – $184,208,848
3. Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986) – $174,803,506
4. TRON: Legacy (Joseph Kosinski, 2010) – $172,062,763
5. Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002) – $170,687,518
6. Sex and the City (Michael Patrick King, 2008) – $152,647,258
7. The Santa Clause (John Pasquin, 1994) – $144,833,357
8. Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008) – $144,130,063
9. The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999) – $140,539,099
10. The Santa Clause 2 (Michael Lembeck, 2002) – $139,236,327