You’re not giving them enough credit; it was a bizarre anomaly even when Titanic came out. That film broke pretty much every rule.
Which doesn’t mean that it won’t be beaten someday. It is going to be harder than it seems for all the reasons given in this thread but a point where ticket prices are high enough that a heavy crowd could beat Titanic’s gross is possible.
Sure. I don’t have any stats to back me up, but with platform releases becoming a thing of the past, I think dropoffs in the second week (and after) have gotten bigger, on average, in recent years.
Hijack: I remember when the film was in production. It was insanely expensive (and over budget?) and the prediction was that it would be a colossal failure.
Now, Argent, this post-apocalyptic prequel you’re working on. You’ll need villians. Sleazy ones. If you can help me get an SAG waiver, I’M YOUR GUY.
Well, a lot of the people on the Titanic were unseated.
Yeah, right. Like you didn’t think the same thing.
I’m waiting for the sequel!
I’ll just note that Spirited Away probably should have been up with the Lion King or what-have-you. If you look at Box Office Mojo, the film made two to three times more internationally than all the films at the same level on tha chart as it, and the theatres were sold out every showing, every day for two frickin months throughout Japan. I couldn’t get in to see it until two months after its release and I was sitting in the front row on the side because that was the only seat open.
Disney really blew everything with their advertising and distribution. I can imagine that with the Japanese-mythology focus that it wouldn’t do as well in the US or elsewhere, but it certainly could have done significantly better than it did.
The sequel will be told from the perspective of the iceberg, and those polar bears on it that had set off so hopefully to find the promised southern lands all laden with crunchy penguins, only to have their journey rudely terminated by a huge chunk of iron.
For full context, that ninth weekend was both Valentine’s Day and President’s Day Weekend.
The sea-quel? 
Actually, I think Cameron’s plan for 2012 is to track down every single person on earth who by then still hasn’t seen Titanic and force them to watch it a la Alex de Large.
Uh oh.
Run, Marc! Run!
I’m going into hiding. Maybe one of those caves that bin Laden raves about. Let Cameron send in tear gas, I’m not budging.
Good observation. Titanic’s single highest grossing day was Valentine’s Day.
At the time, I worked for Paramount Pictures Distribution. We were all amazed as was everyone in the industry. It was originally set for a July 4th weekend release. It wasn’t till the last moment that the release date was changed to December 17th. It was a good thing too. Cameron had a history of films rushed to market (The Abyss) that were ultimately unsatisfying. Having plenty of time to finish the f/x and to finely edit the film is something he (JC) always credits as what made the movie as good as it was.
Now I will say that spring, the early months of that year had a really weak batch of movies. In fact I did predict that Titanic would stay at number 1 till Lost in Space opened in early January. I was worried about The Man in the Iron Mask which also starred Leo but that didn’t unseat Titanic.
But things have changed since then. Bootleg DVDs are much more prevalent and better quality. Heck, you can download HD DVD. That does hurt. Also, the theatre chains have consolidated quite a bit. What that means is that the chains do not do ‘in theatre’ promotions like they used to do. (that is the area I worked in, helping managers promote movies) Now, the chains all have huge in theatre advertising and they don’t want promoting the movies to interfere with that. Some of the promotions the theatres did for that film were really impressive. Huge models of the ship, the staff dressed as ships crews, some theatres set up a bow so that people could go up and have a photo taken in the famous pose of Kate and Leo. (money going to charity)
However, the international markets are constantly developing. Theatre chains in South America and Asia are growing, so the potential of movie catching as big, perhaps bigger than, Titanic is still there. But it will have to be something that hits in the US in all four zones, young men, young women, older people, teens, and hit huge internationally. Not impossible, but hard to predict.
If the Phantom Menace was better received, I think it could have unseated Titanic, but, let’s face it, that movie was not as good as people expected it to be.
The ‘cost’ of Titanic is greatly inflated. They built a studio in Mexico. The entire construction cost was put in the Titanic budget, even though the facility is still there and is being used for productions. A good rule of thumb is to never, ever believe the ‘production costs’ figure touted by the studio.