Titanic | James Cameron | Pretend it's 1997 all over again (The pure awe of Titanic's run)

[Webslinger]

On 2/4/2017 at 0:08 PM, Mango said:

Too bad we don't have a daily breakdown for Tomorrow Never Dies. It was a close weekend with Titanic making a big jump on Saturday and a really slight decline on Sunday. Could it be possible that TND actually edged out Titanic on Friday? Bond had more upfront demand even in the 90's.

 

Something about the most attended single box office run having a number 2 opening day is a fun thought.

 

I believe the-numbers has daily data that placed Titanic narrowly ahead of Tomorrow Never Dies on Friday. By their charts, nothing topped Titanic on a daily basis until U.S. Marshals on March 6 (which then lost the weekend).

 

Titanic's run was nuts. I was only seven at the time, so I wasn't following its box office grosses, but I remember how practically every adult besides my parents, every older kid at my school, and even, like, half of my first grade class talked about seeing it at some point between December and June (when it finally fell out of the top ten and closed up shop in my hometown). I did get to see it as soon as it was released to video (but my parents fast-forwarded through the drawing scene and the car scene ) and I caught it on the big screen during its 3D re-release five years ago, but it's kinda a bummer that I wasn't part of its original theatrical run.

[filmlover]

This turns 20 this year. Time flies.

[Webslinger]

I admire the level of craft and precision that goes into his films, but it's crazy that James Cameron has only made two narrative films in the last twenty years.

[jimisawesome]

The craziest part of the Titanic run is it should have made even more money but Paramount screwed up and never really believed in it.  They only sent out about 65 percent of the requested prints for opening weekend.  They only really sent out more prints to replace broken ones.  I worked at the time in one of the top 50ish revenue theaters in the nation they gave us 1 print despite asking for 2.  On that Monday after its release we asked for another print to total 3,  never got a second print.    We were syncing the film, using 1 print to go through multiple projectors (auditoriums), on our 3 largest screens for the next 2 weekends which is insanely risky and doing 2 screens pretty much every day for the first month and every weekend for the first 3 months or so.  Everyone that could was doing this which is why there was a bump.  Paramount left 5 to 10 million for opening weekend and I honestly believe another 50 to even a 150 million on the table total. 

 

That is just how big the movie was that the studio was working against the film and it still did a historic business. 

 

 

[Webslinger]

It is kind of hilarious to see just how little faith the distributors had in the film (to the point where Fox brought Paramount on board to cushion what they thought would be one of the biggest blows ever brought to a major studio), but can you blame 'em? I know it was the '90s - a time when grand-scale epics were en vogue - but we're still talking about a 194-minute romance with limited star power (they both had previous Oscar nominations, but nothing near blockbuster-level success at the box office) and a ton of bad press surrounding its production and post-production. I get why Paramount and Fox were cautious to a fault.

 

It's also funny to go back to the Box Office Guru's weekend write-up from the film's opening weekend in 1997, in which Pandya stated that the film could possibly ride its strong word-of-mouth and awards buzz to a total as high as $150 million.

[AniNate]

It's an endless cycle with Cameron. Everyone expects his next big budget passion to flop.

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

21 hours ago, jimisawesome said:

The craziest part of the Titanic run is it should have made even more money but Paramount screwed up and never really believed in it.  They only sent out about 65 percent of the requested prints for opening weekend.  They only really sent out more prints to replace broken ones.  I worked at the time in one of the top 50ish revenue theaters in the nation they gave us 1 print despite asking for 2.  On that Monday after its release we asked for another print to total 3,  never got a second print.    We were syncing the film, using 1 print to go through multiple projectors (auditoriums), on our 3 largest screens for the next 2 weekends which is insanely risky and doing 2 screens pretty much every day for the first month and every weekend for the first 3 months or so.  Everyone that could was doing this which is why there was a bump.  Paramount left 5 to 10 million for opening weekend and I honestly believe another 50 to even a 150 million on the table total. 

 

That is just how big the movie was that the studio was working against the film and it still did a historic business. 

 

 

IDK, Titanic was #1 for 15 straight weekends and spent 26 weeks in the Top 10, I feel like the bulk of people who couldn't see it at first but wanted to, somehow got around to it before it left theaters, rather than giving up and settling for the VHS release nine months after it opened.

 

51 minutes ago, Webslinger said:

It is kind of hilarious to see just how little faith the distributors had in the film (to the point where Fox brought Paramount on board to cushion what they thought would be one of the biggest blows ever brought to a major studio), but can you blame 'em? I know it was the '90s - a time when grand-scale epics were en vogue - but we're still talking about a 194-minute romance with limited star power (they both had previous Oscar nominations, but nothing near blockbuster-level success at the box office) and a ton of bad press surrounding its production and post-production. I get why Paramount and Fox were cautious to a fault.

 

It's also funny to go back to the Box Office Guru's weekend write-up from the film's opening weekend in 1997, in which Pandya stated that the film could possibly ride its strong word-of-mouth and awards buzz to a total as high as $150 million.

I know, it's really funny now to look back on those old recaps, all, "oh, it might even make back its budget and become profitable on the home market!" So cute. But it was delayed and over budget and "dangerous" and even the crew getting drugged on the set once, it had all the hallmarks of every bloated blockbuster flop in movie history, the writers had their Cleopatra meets Waterworld comparisons ready to go.

[jimisawesome]

51 minutes ago, BoxOfficeChica said:

IDK, Titanic was #1 for 15 straight weekends and spent 26 weeks in the Top 10, I feel like the bulk of people who couldn't see it at first but wanted to, somehow got around to it before it left theaters, rather than giving up and settling for the VHS release nine months after it opened.

 

 

 

I understand this argument and I probably agree with you on almost any other movie but people were seeing this 5 or 6 times and I am not talking 1 or 2 people but a whole lot of people.  I was a projectionist for most of the run and did not end up seeing the whole movie until May or June and it was still playing in our 3rd biggest house (550 seats if I remember right) and it was still 75 percent full.  I really doubt most of the people in there were watching it for the 1st time.  This is why I feel that the people turned away with sell outs the first 3 weeks are not displaced sales but lost sales as a significant chunk of those people would have seen it both in the first 3 weeks and then again when they saw it in reality. 

 

 

1 hour ago, Webslinger said:

It is kind of hilarious to see just how little faith the distributors had in the film (to the point where Fox brought Paramount on board to cushion what they thought would be one of the biggest blows ever brought to a major studio), but can you blame 'em? I know it was the '90s - a time when grand-scale epics were en vogue - but we're still talking about a 194-minute romance with limited star power (they both had previous Oscar nominations, but nothing near blockbuster-level success at the box office) and a ton of bad press surrounding its production and post-production. I get why Paramount and Fox were cautious to a fault.

 

It's also funny to go back to the Box Office Guru's weekend write-up from the film's opening weekend in 1997, in which Pandya stated that the film could possibly ride its strong word-of-mouth and awards buzz to a total as high as $150 million.

 

 

I do understand Fox bringing in Paramount.  I even to a small degree understand Paramount holding back a bit on prints as it was like 12 or 13 reels which is not cheap.  I don't understand them after that first weekend not rushing to fulfill all the original requests and the new requests.  It is kind of odd that it was the studies that did not know what they had but the Theater Owners were all over this movie.  I still to this day don't understand why Paramount did not have an extra print overnighted dripping wet from the lab to the theater I worked at.  We were doing about $8,000 for the evening showing because of the 3 screen sync.  Having only 1 print meant we could only run 3 showings a day too. 

[setna]

Since i follow movies box office, there is no run for me like Titanic was.

I wonder if ever we will see something like this.

I use to look at BOM it´s adjusted run and can´t stop of amaze me.

Would be very nice to see a sommilar run to this, although i highly doubt it.

Now movies are more and more focused on kids and teenagers and for a kind of megahit Titanic was, it needs people from all ages.

Remember the OS all time record it was Jurassic Park 563 million, Titanic did, more than double!!!!! 1200 million and became top 5 all time in almost every country in the world, something absolutely crazy and epic...

[Jiffy]

I didn't start following box office until early 2000, so I've always been somewhat bitter that I missed out on the fun of tracking Titanic's earth-shattering performance in real time. I regretted not being able to partake in the excitement of such a colossal pop culture phenomenon (I only finally got to see it in 2000 when it premiered on NBC). Although, I'd always maintained that something was bound to come along and overtake it before the end of the decade (00s), but I must admit I was starting to sweat that prediction until Avatar arrived as a last-minute save lol.

 

My excitement over Avatar's performance quickly subdued soon after actually seeing it in theaters for the first time. I'd always been a staunch apologist for Titanic (defending its place as one of my favorite movies of all-time), so I was willing to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt going into it, but unfortunately Avatar isn't fit to compare as Cameron's long-awaited follow-up. I'd even go so far as to say it's the first mediocre film to attain the #1 all-time position (putting the dubious merits of "The Birth of a Nation" aside). 

 

Edited February 10, 2017 by Jiffy

[BoxOfficeFangrl]

On 2/10/2017 at 0:31 PM, jimisawesome said:

 

I understand this argument and I probably agree with you on almost any other movie but people were seeing this 5 or 6 times and I am not talking 1 or 2 people but a whole lot of people.  I was a projectionist for most of the run and did not end up seeing the whole movie until May or June and it was still playing in our 3rd biggest house (550 seats if I remember right) and it was still 75 percent full.  I really doubt most of the people in there were watching it for the 1st time.  This is why I feel that the people turned away with sell outs the first 3 weeks are not displaced sales but lost sales as a significant chunk of those people would have seen it both in the first 3 weeks and then again when they saw it in reality.

Oh, you're saying there was almost like a..."lost generation" of Titanic obsessives who would have been hooked early and watching and rewatching, but the sellouts in the first month—in some locations—kept the turnaways from ever being repeat viewers, or soured them just enough so that they didn't see it as much as they might have in ideal circumstances? Interesting, thanks for the perspective!

Edited February 12, 2017 by BoxOfficeChica

[jimisawesome]

On 2/11/2017 at 8:23 PM, BoxOfficeChica said:

Oh, you're saying there was almost like a..."lost generation" of Titanic obsessives who would have been hooked early and watching and rewatching, but the sellouts in the first month—in some locations—kept the turnaways from ever being repeat viewers, or soured them just enough so that they didn't see it as much as they might have in ideal circumstances? Interesting, thanks for the perspective!

 

A bit of that but more of that people that did not get to see it on say Dec 22nd but instead say it on say Jan 13th are people that would have seen it both on Dec 22nd and Jan 13th if they could have done so.  I know I am antidotal but I really never seen anything like this and I worked in the box office for ID4 and JP2.  People were coming back bringing their friends, then parents and then grand parents.  Another big part of the run was nothing else opened during most of the run so it was always the default movie when people generically wanted to go see a film. 

 

OK maybe not so much ID4 run because that was insane and I truly believe is the singular movie that is most responsible for how movies are made and marketed today even more than JP and Batman. 

 

 

[SteveJaros]

Credit where it's due: Leo DiCaprio's $2.5 million salary for Titanic is probably the biggest bargain in movie history. Yes, Cameron is one of the best filmmakers of the past 40 years and he told a great story, yes, the opening scene of the ship is breathtaking, yes, yes, yes, the movie was a behemoth for several reasons.

 

But, the biggest reason Titanic was so very massive was because of Leo. The teenage girls just kept lining up to see him. They came in droves, and for almost six months they just kept coming over and over again to see him, like 10 year old boys had kept coming over and over again to see Star Wars 19 years earlier. 

Edited February 15, 2017 by SteveJaros

[filmlover]

24 minutes ago, SteveJaros said:

But, the biggest reason Titanic was so very massive was because of Leo. The teenage girls just kept lining up to see him. They came in droves, and for almost six months they just kept coming over and over again to see him, like 10 year old boys had kept coming over and over again to see Star Wars 19 years earlier. 

Yeah, no.

 

If Titanic was so big because teenage girls couldn't get enough of Leo, why were those Backstreet Boys or 'N Sync movies never made? Those would've made at least $300M+ on the basis of "teenage girls couldn't get enough" alone.

[baumer]

14 hours ago, SteveJaros said:

Credit where it's due: Leo DiCaprio's $2.5 million salary for Titanic is probably the biggest bargain in movie history. Yes, Cameron is one of the best filmmakers of the past 40 years and he told a great story, yes, the opening scene of the ship is breathtaking, yes, yes, yes, the movie was a behemoth for several reasons.

 

But, the biggest reason Titanic was so very massive was because of Leo. The teenage girls just kept lining up to see him. They came in droves, and for almost six months they just kept coming over and over again to see him, like 10 year old boys had kept coming over and over again to see Star Wars 19 years earlier. 

 

They came in droves to see the love story.  They came in droves to see Jack and Rose....not Leo and Kate.  There's no doubt that teenage girls made Titanic a lot of money.  It's also no doubt that it made a lot of money from all kinds of different age groups and demos.  I was 26 at the time and I saw it 6 times in the theatre.  Twice with my best male friend, once with my mom and my 80 year old gramma, twice with my girlfriend and once by myself so I could cry without anyone around.  This film transcended age, race, gender and everything else.  It was a true phenom.

[filmlover]

Remember when Leo didn't attend the Oscars and the reports that it was because he was pissed Kate was nominated and he wasn't? Good times.

 

The only times he's ever attended the Oscars has been the years in which he was nominated. This will be the first year where he attends but isn't nominated, though (since the Best Actor winner always comes back the following year to present Best Actress).

[75Live]

43 minutes ago, baumer said:

 

They came in droves to see the love story.  They came in droves to see Jack and Rose....not Leo and Kate.  There's no doubt that teenage girls made Titanic a lot of money.  It's also no doubt that it made a lot of money from all kinds of different age groups and demos.  I was 26 at the time and I saw it 6 times in the theatre.  Twice with my best male friend, once with my mom and my 80 year old gramma, twice with my girlfriend and once by myself so I could cry without anyone around.  This film transcended age, race, gender and everything else.  It was a true phenom.

 

yeah it's a slight shot to say it was just Leo and teenage girls that drove this this to the highest gross at that time.  Did they contribute?  Absolutely and probably a lot, but I saw the movie 11 times in its original run and once on the 3D release only because it was the weekend of the 100th anniversary of the sailing so I figured it would be a cool time to do it.

 

But yeah in all those times, teenage girls never amounted to any more than about 10-15% of the audience.  So that leaves a lot of other quadrants that had to make up the difference.  For reference the girl I saw it with most times was 23 and I was 22

Edited February 15, 2017 by 75live

[IronJimbo]

33 minutes ago, 75live said:

 

yeah it's a slight shot to say it was just Leo and teenage girls that drove this this to the highest gross at that time.  Did they contribute?  Absolutely and probably a lot, but I saw the movie 11 times in its original run and once on the 3D release only because it was the weekend of the 100th anniversary of the sailing so I figured it would be a cool time to do it.

 

But yeah in all those times, teenage girls never amounted to any more than about 10-15% of the audience.  So that leaves a lot of other quadrants that had to make up the difference.  For reference the girl I saw it with most times was 23 and I was 22

Also got to realise whose decision it was to cast Leo in the first place, and the script.. The main reason the film was great was because of Jimbo, it's basically trolling to say otherwise.

[75Live]

22 minutes ago, IronJimbo said:

Also got to realise whose decision it was to cast Leo in the first place, and the script.. The main reason the film was great was because of Jimbo, it's basically trolling to say otherwise.

 

Oh I give Cameron a ton of credit, obviously.  I don't see a movie 12 times in a theater if it wasn't good to me   I like almost all his films except one so yeah he usually does a very good job.

 

Although if I had to pick out a "weak spot" of Titanic was the script.  Most of it was very good, but there were parts that weren't.  But don't flip out, it literally is nitpicking at something tiny to even find something "wrong" with the movie    But yeah obviously I love this film

[baumer]

4 hours ago, 75live said:

 

yeah it's a slight shot to say it was just Leo and teenage girls that drove this this to the highest gross at that time.  Did they contribute?  Absolutely and probably a lot, but I saw the movie 11 times in its original run and once on the 3D release only because it was the weekend of the 100th anniversary of the sailing so I figured it would be a cool time to do it.

 

But yeah in all those times, teenage girls never amounted to any more than about 10-15% of the audience.  So that leaves a lot of other quadrants that had to make up the difference.  For reference the girl I saw it with most times was 23 and I was 22

 

I saw it twice when rereleased in 3D and I'd go again to see it on the big screen.  I can't get enough of it.