"Titanic" re-released 25 years later, and it broke all movie box office rules

After the 25th anniversary of its first release, the movie "Titanic" has recently been re-screened in 3D in many regions, and it also became one of the highest-grossing films on the weekend of February 10, which proves that it continues to be widely popular with audiences.

Originally premiered in late 1997, Titanic quickly became the highest-grossing film of all time in the world, a title that remained for more than a decade. Until the release of "Avatar" in 2009, and then ranked second for ten consecutive years, "Avengers: Endgame" finally pushed it to third place in 2019.

From a box office point of view, "Titanic", a romantic and sad romance film, has surpassed many movie blockbusters. Indeed, it breaks some unofficial rules set by almost every other box office blockbuster.

The oldest film in the top 10 box office worldwide

"Titanic" was released in December 1997 and is the oldest of the top 10 highest-grossing movies of all time. The next "ancient" film was the box office number one Avatar, which was released in 2009. Both of these films were directed by Cameron.

The next "old movie" is the 10th-ranked "Avengers 1", which is actually not old, it was released in 2012. Among the TOP200 high-grossing movies, only 11 were released before 2000, the oldest of which was "Jurassic Park" (released in 1993), ranking 31st overall.

Therefore, "Titanic" is particularly remarkable as a film released before 2000 to be able to maintain a stable position in the top 10 global box office.

In fact, if you want to count these 25 years of inflation, "Titanic" should rank second in the global box office after "Avatar". Both films directed by Cameron have been re-screened several times, which means that they need to be accumulated according to inflation. Avatar's box office is about $4.06 billion adjusted for inflation, while Titanic's adjusted total is about $3.9 billion, both clearly ahead of third-ranked Avengers: Endgame, a Marvel movie with adjusted total revenue of about $3.3 billion.

Among the top 10 box office movies, "Titanic" is an outlier

Looking through the other top 10 movies, you'll see how out of place "Titanic" is compared to the genre of the other nine movies on the list.

In addition to "Titanic", the top ten are "Avatar", "Avengers 4: Endgame", "Avatar: Way of Water", "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", "Avengers 3: Infinity War", "Spider-Man: Homeless", "Jurassic World", "The Lion King" (live-action) and "Avengers".

While Titanic is a stand-alone period film, the other films on the list are science fiction and fantasy series, with the exception of The Lion King (a remake of Disney's "Real Lion." Of the top 10, 4 are Marvel Universe movies.

To illustrate how lonely "Titanic" is among the highest-grossing films, it can also stretch the list to the 200 highest-grossing films of all time, and the vast majority of movies that can make this list are science fiction, fantasy, action or cartoon.

And on the TOP200 list that can be described as a feature film is the 36th-ranked "Joker", which is still a comic book revoked movie. Another anomaly in the list - the 68th place musical biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody".

It can be seen that the appearance of "Titanic" on the list is not only a type anomaly, it is a completely unique phenomenon.

More than 3 hours of show time is longer than other blockbusters

In fact, it is not common for a film with a longer period of time to appear on the list, especially at the top of the box office list.

TOP2's "Avengers: Endgame" (181 minutes) and third-place "Titanic" (194 minutes), as well as the recent fourth-place "Avatar: The Way of Water" (193 minutes), all have more than three hours in duration. Obviously, "Titanic" is the longest-running one.

Movies over 3 hours are definitely among the highest-grossing films, which is definitely an anomaly, because the general convention is that longer films are more risky at the box office because they can't give more screenings than other shorter films when arranging films.

The average length of each movie in the top 10, including a three-hour movie, is less than two and a half hours, and Titanic's 194 minutes is a big outlier. Excluding the three-hour movie, the other seven films in the top ten have an average duration of just two hours and fifteen minutes, which is more than an hour shorter than "Titanic."

The box office performance is unlike any other blockbuster

In December 1997, Titanic grossed $28.6 million in its opening weekend, the lowest weekend to date among the top 10 box office lists. It was followed by 2009's Avatar with $77 million. Adjusted for inflation, the premiere time for Titanic reached $53.4 million in today's dollars, which is still the lowest opening weekend in the top 10.

The real performance of "Titanic" comes from its "long tail effect". While most of the films in the top 10 grossed most of their box office receipts in just a few weeks, Titanic's performance lasted for months. With the exception of Titanic, the average multiplier for the top 10 (total box office divided by opening weekend box office) is 3.72, while Titanic has a multiplier of 23.02.

Compared to the second-highest-grossing film "Avengers 4: Endgame", "Titanic" grossed more than "Endgame" in its first 27 days of release, but after that, "Titanic" grossed more day after day. The box office of Avengers 4: Endgame lasted 35 weeks, but Titanic lasted a crazy 54 weeks, making its box office trajectory completely different from any other film in the top 10.

The Titanic is still making a lot of money at the box office

Titanic's box office performance didn't just include its first 54 weeks of screenings. Usually, movies don't make much money after their initial box office receipts. If reissued, it would normally be released in a limited capacity for a short period of time, earning hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars at most, but Titanic has seen multiple massively successful re-releases, boosting its box office cumulative numbers.

Its first re-release was a 3D remastered in 2012. During that re-release, Titanic earned a staggering $350.4 million worldwide. Titanic ranked 21st at the box office in 2012, beating out films like action blockbuster The Expendables 2, which is impressive for a (then) 15-year-old movie.

On February 10, "Titanic" celebrated its 25th anniversary again, and in less than a week, it grossed $22.3 million at the global box office, once again becoming one of the highest-grossing films.

Titanic isn't the only James Cameron film to be successfully re-released, as the original Avatar has also been reissued several times and made a lot of money. In the case of Avatar, the film re-released in China in 2021 earned nearly $58 million, and after being briefly surpassed by Avengers: Endgame in 2019, Avatar returned to the number one position.

Ironically, the 25th anniversary re-screening of Titanic coincided with Cameron's Avatar sequel The Way of Water still in theaters, leading the latter to finish third at the end of the weekend.

Jack doesn't actually have to die

"Titanic" is still controversial because Leonardo DiCaprio's actor Jack Jack must die - many people believe that Kate Winslet's Ruth can make Jack lie on his stomach and wait for rescue as long as he moves his body slightly to make the floating door panel on the sea more space - so in addition to releasing a remake of the movie this year, the director who has insisted for many years that "Jack can't survive" Cameron personally carried out experiments to solve the above mystery, Hopefully this topic will be closed once and for all.

In the special project "Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron" in the American show "Good Morning America", Cameron restored the door panel in the movie, and invited stuntmen of similar weight to conduct actual measurements in the icy pool, and found that if Jack used the door panel to maintain his upper body out of the water like in the movie, Despite the intense trembling, there was still a chance of survival, the expert said: "His violent shaking actually helps, on the surface of the water he can hold out for a very long time, maybe several hours, which will stabilize him, if we want to, he can hold out to the lifeboat." ”

Despite confirming that Jack has a chance of survival, Cameron remains very firm about the character's tragic fate: "There will still be a lot of variables. He believes that Jack's choice to go into the sea was a "planned sacrifice" made to save the lives of his loved ones, and that other endings are not quite in line with Jack's gentlemanly manners.

Cameron concluded, "I still don't think Jack would do anything at that moment that could jeopardize Rose's safety. And said that if he had known that there would be such a controversy, he would have made the door panel of the movie smaller to avoid subsequent doubts.

Leonardo almost missed playing Jack

In November 2022, Cameron was interviewed by the media when promoting the second Avatar, recalling some relevant details of "Titanic". Cameron said that Leonardo DiCaprio almost passed by the male protagonist because he "didn't read the lines".

The right casting is an indispensable essence of a masterpiece, and Cameron considered asking Gwyneth Paltrow to star in "Rose", but after meeting Kate Winslet, she was determined to be the best candidate; As for the actor "Jack", he laughed and said: "There was an audition for Leonardo DiCaprio that year, that meeting was interesting, I looked around and saw that the scene was crowded with all the female staff, even the female accountant, obviously everyone was fascinated by Leonardo? I thought to myself: 'The answer speaks for itself.'" ”

Although Leonardo has been confirmed to be attractive, Cameron also wants to test whether there is chemistry between him and Kate Winslet and whether it can stir up sparks, so the two meet again. At first, Leonardo thought he was just going to meet the heroine, but he didn't expect to play it, and he said to the director: "Oh, I can't read the lines." ”

Cameron was slightly disappointed and shook hands with Leonardo to thank him for coming.

If the conversation had ended here, it would be hard to imagine whether the film could have today's status in the film industry, but fortunately Leonardo suddenly reacted: "Wait, if I don't read it now, then I won't get this role, right?" ”

Cameron explained: "It's a masterpiece and it took me two years to prepare, so I'm not going to screw up because of casting mistakes, so you either read it now or miss the role." ”

In the end, Leonardo relented, and Cameron later recalled: "Such a negative person, after I shouted Action, turned into 'Jack', Kate also lit up, the two perfectly presented the scene, I think he is the right person." ”