Will Titanic be unseated?

Cafe Society
1

It’s been 10 years since Titanic, no movie has come really close to beating it money-wise. Despite higher budgets and higher ticket prices, I still don’t see it being unseated anytime soon.

[ul]
[li] Too much competition during peak seasons. A high-budget blockbuster may have only 2-3 weeks before the next blockbuster is released.[/li][li] A main reason Titanic is on top is because of the repeat viewings. Nowadays, people don’t need to see a movie more than a couple times in the theater. The DVD comes out in maybe 4 months. And now blu-ray will make it easier to have a near-theatrical experience at home.[/li][li] The really dedicated fans who would see it more than twice can get it through other means, which can usually tide them over until the DVD is released.[/li][/ul]

I thought Phantom Menace would do it.
[ul]
[li] Arguably the most anticipated movie ever [/li][li] Had huge lines at the theaters[/li][li] Unprecedented marketing (including free marketing from the media)[/li][li] No one wanted to compete with it for a long time in the summer[/li][/ul]

It’s easy to bash TPM as a bad movie, but people do the same for Titanic, so I’m not sure how important the “quality” aspect is.

2

*The Hobbit * has the best chance of anything coming up.

3

Wait a minute…what about the LOTR movies? Surely they did just as well?

4

The market has changed: I’d say there’s more competition from TV now, along with Netflix and Blockbuster and downloads. And maybe computer and video games should be factored in there too. Ticket prices are up, but movie attendance is down. Titanic benefited in particular from a lot of repeat viewings, which might be less likely in today’s market. So I don’t think anything is going to beat Titanic any time soon either.

5

Not even close.

From Box Office Mojo:

The Return of the King - $377,027,325
The Two Towers - $341,786,758
Fellowship of the Ring - $314,776,170

6

According to Box Office Mojo, Return of the King is a very distant second. The give Titanic more than $1.8 billion and ROTK almost $1.2 billion.

The above are worldwide figures. Eric Halfabee’s are domestic, and Titanic made about $600 million in the U.S. So it’s not close.

7

When I finally produce the prequel to The Postman that I’ve been working on, I think Titanic will be knocked off of its filthy, oxidized, bird-dung-encrusted pedestal, smashed into a million squirming, festering pieces, and buried deep underground.

8

Man can turn a phrase, I’ll say that.

9

Titanic was a story that everyone knew, and it brought EVERYONE to the theater; your mum, your gran, your… other gran… people that hadn’t set foot in a cinema for years came to see it. Plus, it utilised groundbreaking special effects in a dramatic sense, something that hadn’t really been done before; Jurassic Park or Independance day didn’t bring out the unconverted, really.

Seriously, the only movie in recent years that I thought had a chance of challenging Titanic was The Passion of the Christ; shit, our local church organised a coach to carry people to the cinema on Sunday afternoons, and it filled that thing full of OAP’s for WEEKS. TPOTC was the one movie that I have ever, EVER been refused into, on account of it being completley sold out.

So, Will Titanic be unseated? I’m going to say yes, as soon as Hollywood gets off it’s lazy fat hole and remakes

The Greatest Story Ever Told in 3D,

starring Johnny Depp as Jesus Christ, and Angelina Jolie as Mary Magdalene, and if they can shoehorn Jeff Goldblum in there somewhere, as Pontious Pilate, or whoever; that Jeff Goldblum is Box Office GOLD. And hey, see if we can oar in that LeBeouf kid; he’s so FUCKIN HOT right now. It’ll play in the Bible Belt until the film stock dissolves. Open it at Easter (natch) which is a pretty quiet time for blockbusters, and it’ll make more money than Microsoft.

10

I haven’t seen the movie. I don’t say this to sound like I’m too good for it but I’m amazed I haven’t seen the top grossing movie of all time. It’s like there’s something wrong with me.

Marc

11

Note that Titanic isn’t even in the top five when adjusted for inflation.

1 Gone with the Wind MGM $1,377,944,300 $198,676,459 1939^
2 Star Wars Fox $1,214,775,600 $460,998,007 1977^
3 The Sound of Music Fox $971,272,900 $158,671,368 1965
4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Uni. $967,446,600 $435,110,554 1982^
5 The Ten Commandments Par. $893,420,000 $65,500,000 1956

12

After Titanic you have to go down another 9 spots to find another film that’s not a sequel and 14 spots to find another film thats not sci-fi/fantasy (and that film is Finding Nemo, which while I guess isn’t technically a fantasy, does involve talking fish).

So I’d say that The Hobbit is a good guess.

13

I think this is the key. I don’t think there will be anywhere near as big a theatrical event as Titanic ever again.

By the way, I wish the measurement of movie popularity was based on tickets sold/audience figures (and then DVD numbers sold, coupled with, but separated from, Rental numbers), and not just on dollars spent. Inflation is almost never taken into account, therefore they’re giving false readings.

14

I wonder whether **Titanic ** will be screened again in cinemas in 2012 to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the sinking?

15

Do those only include the original release? Titanic has not been signifigantly re-released since it opened in 1997.

16

I’d bet on it. Unless, of course, the Mayans are right and the world ends first.

17

…In the U.S., that is.

And to expand on HubZilla’s post, take a look at these records:

SECOND WEEKENDS Shrek 2 $72,170,363
THIRD WEEKENDS Spider-Man $45,036,912
FOURTH WEEKENDS Titanic $28,716,310
FIFTH WEEKENDS Titanic $30,010,633
SIXTH WEEKENDS Titanic $25,238,720
SEVENTH WEEKENDS Titanic $25,907,172
EIGHTH WEEKENDS Titanic $23,027,838
NINTH WEEKENDS Titanic $28,167,947
TENTH WEEKENDS Titanic $21,036,343
ELEVENTH WEEKENDS Titanic $19,633,056
TWELFTH WEEKENDS Titanic $17,605,849

Not only does Titanic have the top-grossing fourth through twelfth weekends, it often went up from one weekend to the next, even two months after its release. These days, a movie in wide release just doesn’t do that. A limited release like Juno, maybe, but that’s a movie that is making a lot less money to begin with.

18

Not quite. The top-ranked Harry Potter film (at #4 overall) is the first in the franchise - so technically not a sequel.

There’s a very detailed explanation of how they handle that here.

19

I thought Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith would be the film to “sink the Titanic”.

20

This is the key. If another film approaches it, it will not be a sci/fi or fantasy picture. Those films have a lock on the most valuable demographic, but it is limited. There are a lot of people to whom those kind of films hold no interest.