Including revenue from the 2012, 2017 and 2023 reissues, Titanic earned $674.3 million in North America and $1.583 billion in other countries, for a worldwide total of $2.257 billion.[Note 1][14] It became the highest-grossing film of all time worldwide in 1998, beating Jurassic Park (1993).[109] The film remained so for twelve years, until Avatar (2009), also written and directed by Cameron, surpassed it in 2010.[110] On March 1, 1998,[111] it became the first film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide[112] and on the weekend April 13–15, 2012—a century after the original vessel's foundering, Titanic became the second film to cross the $2 billion threshold during its 3D re-release.[113] Box Office Mojo estimates that Titanic is the fifth-highest-grossing film of all time in North America when adjusting for ticket price inflation.[114] The site also estimates that the film sold over 128 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.[115]
Titanic was the first foreign-language film to succeed in India, which claims to have the largest movie-going audience in the world.[116] A Hindustan Times report attributes this to the film's similarities and shared themes with most Bollywood films.[117]
Initial theatrical run
The film received steady attendance after opening in North America on Friday, December 19, 1997. By the end of that same weekend, theaters were beginning to sell out. The film earned $8,658,814 on its opening day and $28,638,131 over the opening weekend from 2,674 theaters, averaging to about $10,710 per venue, and ranking number one at the box office, ahead of Mouse Hunt, Scream 2 and the eighteenth James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies. It would go on to surpass The Godfather Part III's record for having the highest Christmas Day gross, generating a total of $9.2 million. For its second weekend, the film made $35.6 million, making it the biggest December weekend gross, surpassing Scream 2.[118] By New Year's Day, Titanic had made over $120 million, had increased in popularity and theaters continued to sell out. In just 44 days, it became the fastest film to approach the $300 million mark at the domestic box office, surpassing the former record held by Jurassic Park, which took 67 days to do so.[119] Titanic would hold this record until 1999 when it was taken by Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.[120]
Its highest grossing single day was Saturday, February 14, 1998, on which it earned $13,048,711, more than eight weeks after its North American debut.[121][122] On March 14, it surpassed Star Wars as the highest-grossing film ever in North America.[123] It stayed at number one for 15 consecutive weeks in North America, a record for any film.[124] By April 1998, the film's number one spot would be overtaken by Lost in Space, dropping into second place.[125] The film stayed in theaters in North America for almost 10 months before finally closing on Thursday, October 1, 1998, with a final domestic gross of $600,788,188,[126] equivalent to $1140.3 million in 2023[127]. Outside North America, the film made double its North American gross, generating $1,242,413,080[128] and accumulating a grand total of $1,843,201,268 worldwide from its initial theatrical run.[129]
Commercial analysis
Before Titanic's release, various film critics predicted the film would be a significant disappointment at the box office, especially since it was the most expensive film ever made at the time.[76][130][131][132] When it was shown to the press in autumn of 1997, "it was with massive forebodings", since the "people in charge of the screenings believed they were on the verge of losing their jobs – because of this great albatross of a picture on which, finally, two studios had to combine to share the great load of its making".[131] Cameron also thought he was "headed for disaster" at one point during filming. "We labored the last six months on Titanic in the absolute knowledge that the studio would lose $100 million. It was a certainty," he stated.[76] As the film neared release, "particular venom was spat at Cameron for what was seen as his hubris and monumental extravagance". A film critic for the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Cameron's overweening pride has come close to capsizing this project" and that the film was "a hackneyed, completely derivative copy of old Hollywood romances".[76]
It's hard to forget the director on the stage of the Shrine Auditorium in LA, exultant, pumping a golden Oscar statuette into the air and shouting: "I'm the king of the world!" As everyone knew, that was the most famous line in Titanic, exclaimed by Leonardo DiCaprio's character as he leaned into the wind on the prow of the doomed vessel. Cameron's incantation of the line was a giant "eff off", in front of a television audience approaching a billion, to all the naysayers, especially those sitting right in front of him.
—Christopher Goodwin of The Times on Cameron's response to Titanic's criticism[76]
When the film became a success, with an unprecedented box-office performance, it was credited for being a love story that captured its viewers' emotions.[130] The film was playing on 3,200 screens ten weeks after it opened,[131] and out of its fifteen straight weeks on top of the charts, jumped 43% in total sales in its ninth week of release. It earned over $20 million for each of its first 10 weekends,[133] and after 14 weeks was still bringing in more than $1 million on weekdays.[131] 20th Century Fox estimated that seven percent of American teenage girls had seen Titanic twice by its fifth week.[134] Although young women who saw the film several times and subsequently caused "Leo-Mania" were often credited with having primarily propelled the film to its all-time box office record,[135] other reports have attributed the film's success to positive word of mouth and repeat viewership due to the love story combined with the ground-breaking special effects.[133][136] The Hollywood Reporter estimated that after a combined production and promotion cost of $487 million, the film turned a net profit of $1.4 billion, with a modern profit of as much as $4 billion after ancillary sources.[137]
Titanic's impact on men has also been especially credited.[138][139][140] It is considered one of the films that make men cry,[138][139] with MSNBC's Ian Hodder stating that men admire Jack's sense of adventure and his ambitious behavior to win over Rose, which contributes to their emotional attachment to Jack.[138] The film's ability to make men cry was briefly parodied in the 2009 film Zombieland, where character Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), when recalling the death of his young son, states: "I haven't cried like that since Titanic."[141]
Scott Meslow of The Atlantic stated while Titanic initially seems to need no defense, given its success, it is considered a film "for 15-year-old girls" by its main detractors. He argued that dismissing Titanic as fodder for teenage girls fails to consider the film's accomplishment: "that [this] grandiose, 3+ hour historical romantic drama is a film for everyone—including teenage boys." Meslow stated that despite the film being ranked high by males under the age of 18, matching the ratings for teenage boy-targeted films like Iron Man, it is common for boys and men to deny liking Titanic. He acknowledged his own rejection of the film as a child while secretly loving it. "It's this collection of elements—the history, the romance, the action—that made (and continues to make) Titanic an irresistible proposition for audiences of all ages across the globe," he stated. "Titanic has flaws, but for all its legacy, it's better than its middlebrow reputation would have you believe. It's a great movie for 15-year-old girls, but that doesn't mean it's not a great movie for everyone else too."[140]
Quotes in the film aided its popularity. Titanic's catchphrase "I'm the king of the world!" became one of the film industry's more popular quotations.[142][143] According to Richard Harris, a psychology professor at Kansas State University, who studied why people like to cite films in social situations, using film quotations in everyday conversation is similar to telling a joke and a way to form solidarity with others. "People are doing it to feel good about themselves, to make others laugh, to make themselves laugh", he said.[143]
Cameron explained the film's success as having significantly benefited from the experience of sharing. "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it," he said. "They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life. That's how Titanic worked."[144] Media Awareness Network stated, "The normal repeat viewing rate for a blockbuster theatrical film is about 5%. The repeat rate for Titanic was over 20%."[24] The box office receipts "were even more impressive" when factoring in "the film's 3-hour-and-14-minute length meant that it could only be shown three times a day compared to a normal movie's four showings". In response to this, "[m]any theatres started midnight showings and were rewarded with full houses until almost 3:30 am".[24]
Titanic held the record for box office gross for 12 years.[145] Cameron's follow-up film, Avatar, was considered the first film with a genuine chance at surpassing its worldwide gross,[146][147] and did so in 2010.[110] Various explanations for why the film was able to successfully challenge Titanic were given. For one, "Two-thirds of Titanic's haul was earned overseas, and Avatar [tracked] similarly ... Avatar opened in 106 markets globally and was no. 1 in all of them" and the markets "such as Russia, where Titanic saw modest receipts in 1997 and 1998, are white-hot today" with "more screens and moviegoers" than ever before.[148] Brandon Gray, president of Box Office Mojo, said that while Avatar may beat Titanic's revenue record, the film is unlikely to surpass Titanic in attendance. "Ticket prices were about $3 cheaper in the late 1990s."[146] In December 2009, Cameron had stated, "I don't think it's realistic to try to topple Titanic off its perch. Some pretty good movies have come out in the last few years. Titanic just struck some kind of chord."[133] In a January 2010 interview, he gave a different take on the matter once Avatar's performance was easier to predict, saying "It's gonna happen. It's just a matter of time,".[147]
Author Alexandra Keller, when analyzing Titanic's success, stated that scholars could agree that the film's popularity "appears dependent on contemporary culture, on perceptions of history, on patterns of consumerism and globalization, as well as on those elements experienced filmgoers conventionally expect of juggernaut film events in the 1990s – awesome screen spectacle, expansive action, and, more rarely seen, engaging characters and epic drama."[149]
