Given the confluence of DVDs, On-Demand services, shorter Theater-DVD times, and public apathy it is quite possible, even likely, that Titanic will never be topped. This argument is nothing new. The dawn of VCRs was hailed as the beginning of the end for the movie industry. What distinguishes then from now is that technology and the market is making it painfully easy to see a recent movie in your livingroom or wait a short while for it to leave theaters. Misanthropes rejoice. As these trends progress mega blockbusters will become even rarer and most of the top films of the year will reside in the $250-$350m (2005) category. Studio profit potential may not change as they adjust to the changing landscapes but less dependence will be made on boxoffice receipts.


Discuss

I agree lilmac.

don't star wars and GWTW have higher adjusted grosses?

Indeed and so by default their grosses are unlikely to be achieved again.

Yes, the movie theatre is dying. We will all be witnesses to it.

Does somebody have a link for a worldwide adjusted gross list???

It's almost impossible to adjust foreign grosses.

I often contemplate on the fact that I can't really explain the T's oversized $$$.. My analysis relies on concepts of storytelling vs. the aforementioned aspects of technology(dvd, releases, etc.).. AS the world becomes 'safer' and more 'interconnected' then the aspect of exceptional story becomes more remote with each decade... Thus a classic telling of an epic story has passed.. Fearce love between classes, battle against the elements, the heights of new technology.... These are each and all being muddeled in the web of connectiveness...

comments ... ??

Yes. I think you're brilliant.


Greater connectivity does decrease the need for the representation of the 'other', whatever that other is, and the need to fight it, because the other can be so easily contacted. Social boundaries (classes, ethnicities, religions, etc.) and geographical boundaries (mountains, deserts, the sea) that previously separated us are not entirely removed, but they are much more easily crossed.

I think Titanic suggests the one separation which this connectivity will heighten, rather then remove, and that is the separation between the human being and the machine. We can construct a ship like the Titanic, but we cannot prevent human arrogance from turning it into a monstrous tomb. Likewise, we can create airplanes, but cannot fully prevent them from being transformed into weapons of mass destruction.

What you have touched on is something we as a society have yet to fully understand. The world at present is no less a new territory than the Americas were five hundred years ago.


Cheers.

Well, from a more business perspective, I think Titanic's success was largely attributed to the fact that it had such a massive, broad-demographic appeal. However, the entertainment industry is increasingly adopting a demassified concept in marketing that movies and TV shows just don't reach the audience levels they used to. It's a much more efficient and less risky way of marketing a brand, but the payoff may not be as big...

Shrek 2 proves you wrong.

Those movies still exist, it's just there are more and more movies these days that use a different formula.

Why King Kong will outgross Titanic....think about, they're pretty much the exact same movie ('cept Kong opened twice as big --> will gross twice as much)

1. Both 3+ hours
2. Both have male hearthrobs that attract repeat female viewership (Leo and Jack Black)
3. Both involve the title character (or object) 'falling' to its death in the end.
4. Both have (in)famous nipple shots.

Nipples in King Kong

Dude, when this is all said and done and the dust settles and the smoke clears, KING KONG will be seen as a joke in comparison to TITANIC and will all look back on this whole thing and wonder what we were smoking to even cause us to think this movie would challenge TITANIC.. It's all downhill the rest of the way for KONG..

Perhaps my assertion that most of the top movies will fall in the $250-$350m range is false. Or maybe I should anticipate adjustments to inflation.

I agree and also think this sucks in the sense that Cameron's gonna lay claim to this title of having a movie at the #1 All Time Domestic Grosser without another film of equal or better quality having a fair chance at passing it because of times changing....

There's one rule that rules them all: NEVER SAY NEVER...

Who would have thought in advance that a little independent movie which opened in 108 theaters and averaged only $5,531 in those theaters would leave theaters with more than $241m? (MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING of course)

Who would have thought in advance that a subtitled movie would do more than $370m at the box office? (THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST of course).

Who would have thought in the first place that TITANIC would gross more than $600m?

Who would have thought in advance that a movie would beat TITANIC? (MOVIE TITLE still unknown ;-))

Another golden Hollywood rule (by William Goldman): NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING

But information about foreign admissions should be somewhere. And it is more reliable than grosses.

Is Titanic even the biggest grosser, adjusting currency from the films in the past? I doubt it but if it is, it's probably not by much.

Gone With the Wind is, isn't it?

Regardless, Titanic's run is a hell of a lot more impressive.

Worldwide i think it is.

Does a list of all time worldwide grossers adjusted for inflation even exist?

If it does, Nazgul may be right that Titanic would be tops, though I'm guessing that Star Wars would be close.

As to the original point, if you just look at the inflation-adjusted domestic list, we haven't seen a movie crack the top 25 in seven years now (last one was The Phantom Menace). (Cracking the top 25 means grossing nearly $500 million in 2006 dollars.) That's a rather long drought. But it's certainly not unprecedented. There was a similar drought between Return of the Jedi in 1983 and Jurassic Park in 1993. So these things can be cyclical, and it's a bit presumptuous to say that something will *never* happen in the future, just based on trends from the last few years.

I believe it does. It is really not so hard to make such list, although it takes time and patience. The information about admissions exists, the problem is to find it and put together. To get the adjusted gross you only need to take a movie, a country where it was released, and the number of tickets sold multiplied by the current average ticket price in that country. Than take all countries, where the movie was released, and put the grosses together. Mission possible.