The much loved and/or hated Titanic has held the record as the highest grossing film in history for over ten years now(although,if you want to be nit-picky about it, if you adjust for inflation Gone with the Wind is actually the highest grossing film in history). Does Dark Knight have a chance to sink Titanic's record? Of course, one major reason why Titanic did so well was that tween girls kept seeing the movie over and over and over again because they thought Leo was soooo cute. And of course Lifetime watching women loved this film for its heartbreaking romance and saw it multiple times as well. Does Dark Knight have the staying power of Titanic? Is it worth seeing multiple times? I mean, I saw it once and that's enought for me, but I know comic book geeks/sci-fi nerds that have seen this flick 4, 5, or even 6 times already. One guy I work with honestly thinks that The Dark Knight is The Best Movie Ever Made, and I suppose he isn't alone with that thought.

In box office? Probably not.

In number of unnecessary new threads at DVDTalk? Probably.

Yes b/c ticket sales will equal the number of threads about the movie.

Oh, I have a stub, am I allowed to post a thread then?

you couldn't ask this in the box-office thread?

Or the other hundred threads about the dark knight?

One per ticket stub. I've got two I'm saving up.

my thoughts exactly. i love the Dark Knight and don't mind many threads about it, but this topic has a perfectly fitting thread already.

Well I mind, enough already! And I love the movie too.

Nope.

Eonline ran a story on the chances of this being the first film that could take on Titanic and win. There is a chance that it could overtake it, and there are a couple of factors that have been working for Knight that worked for Titanic. One is the repeat fanbase. Two is that people acrossed the board have been going to see this. Thats what worked for Titanic was that it wasn't just teen girls, there were all types of people that went out to see the film. If Knight in the next week or so crosses $400 million and still pulling in desent numbers, then we can start to think if the film has legs to take on Titanic. I know that no one thought that the film was going to do this good. Everyone was posting that the five big box office films of the summer were going to be Indiana Jones, Hancock, Narnia, Iron Man, and Wall*E.

currently, tdk has $335 million domestic.

titanic had $600 million domestic. I don't know if that's including vhs/dvd/rental sales.

Internationally, no, tdk isn't even going to be close.

I think the TDK will get very close to $500 million domestic in theaters.

It was $600m domestic in theaters.

Rentals (back in the pre-DVD saturation days, and VHS rental phasing) grossed $324.4m (doesn't include sales).

Worldwide it grossed $900m off rentals ($324.4m here, the rest overseas).

Titanic grossed $1,242,091,767 overseas theatrically, brining its grand Box Office to $1.84b. With rentals that total becomes $2.74b. With sales I'm sure it's another half billion or more.

So for a movie to truly surpass Titanic, it would have to meet an (not adjusted for inflation) amount I'd say surpassing $3.5b in its lifetime (assuming around $750m in sales (DVD, VHS, LD, Cable rights, etc.) ($750m is probably high).

Which adjusted for inflation (not including ticket prices, just general "what the dollar is worth"), a movie would have to rake in around $4.6 billion.

For Fox, it was a very wise $200m investment.

Adjusted for inflation - if it isn't already - even more.

No.

No.

I think it has a chance to beat Titanic's domestic haul. One advantage is that it might be able to squeeze in an extra showing per day that Titanic because of the length. But DK is pretty long as well, so I can't guarantee that. But on the other hand, Titanic wasn't a summer movie. Attention spans tend to be a little shorter in summer and there are usually more big event movies coming out that could took away some from DK's total haul.

I love how people make light of Titanic's box office haul by pointing out repeat viewings from teen girls. It's no different than all the comic fanatics going out and seeing this movie multiple times! And we all know that they are ...

Well yahoo thinks it will:

Titanic's Been Unsinkable...Until Dark Knight?
Wednesday July 30 6:51 PM ET

by Joal Ryan



Los Angeles (E! Online) - Ten years after sailing off with $600.8 million, Titanic remains the top-grossing movie of all-time, a title which, up until The Dark Knight onslaught, hasn't been seriously challenged.

Why?

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Statistically speaking, says Jeffrey Simonoff, borrowing a famous line from screenwriter William Goldman, "Nobody knows."

"Many people have noted if the stock market is a high-risk market, the movies is far riskier," says Simonoff, professor of statistics at New York University's Stern School of Business.

Huge opening weekends and great buzz certainly increase a movie's odds of making lots and lots of money, but beyond that, Simonoff argues, it's all guesswork.

"What Titanic had was the amazing word of mouth that just kept growing and growing," Simonoff says. "[But] it wasn't like after the second weekend people could say this is going to be the No. 1 movie for the next three months."

Actually, Titanic was the No. 1 movie at the weekend box office for about three-and-a-half months, or 15 weeks, the second-longest run in the top spot after E.T., which logged 16 weeks there in 1982.

To Vicki Kunkel, author of upcoming Instant Appeal: The 8 Primal Factors That Create Blockbuster Success, movies that play on and on and on, like Titanic, are the cinematic equivalent of potato chips—one viewing is not enough.

"Titanic pretty much had all the elements that light up the endorphins on the brain," says Kunkel. "Anything that makes us feel good is addictive."

If all blockbuster movies contain like elements, Kunkel points out, then Titanic had all the right elements, including a love story (see: Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack and Kate Winslet's Rose), a self-sacrificing heroine (see: Rose spurn her rich fiancé, Billy Zane's Cal, for poor Jack) and a clear-cut battle between good and bad (see: Jack take on Cal).

Kunkel finds a couple of these key elements, especially the conflict between good and evil, at play in The Dark Knight. She doesn't, however, foresee another bag of potato chips. Or, more precisely, a bigger bag of potato chips.

"We relate more to real people than we do to superheroes," Kunkel says. "And that's when the real addictiveness happens, when we have a deep primal connection."

Christopher Sharrett, professor of communications and film studies at Seton Hall University, thinks there could be a different kind of connection going on between the seriously dark Dark Knight and today's moviegoers.

"It's ripped out of the headlines," Sharrett says. "It's something that appeals to a cynicism of the population."

More than that, Sharrett thinks the untimely death of Heath Ledger, so prominent in The Dark Knight as iconic villain The Joker, is the film's X factor—the something different that, as he sees it, distinguishes the superhero-action movie from all the other recent superhero-action movies.

But does that add up to The Dark Knight moving from $400 million, its certain next stop, all the way to Titanic's $600 million neighborhood?

"For what it's worth," Simonoff says, "I would certainly say it wouldn't be surprising given the way things look like now."

Then again, he says, it wouldn't be surprising if it fell $100 million short.

Says Simonoff: "You can never know for sure."

Up until its release, after all, Titanic was considered a $200 million gamble. Until it paid off. And off. And off.

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/eo/2...746906000.html

Agreed. Folks, every time you reply all you're doing is bumping this to the top.

Agreed. Let it be.

Hear Hear!

I concur.

Amen!

I refuse to post in this thread.

Sorry, what? I wasn't listening...

Huh?
I saw it three times?
Did it work?
Did it beat Titatnic?
SOMEONE BUMP THIS - I NEED TO KNOW!