The Dark Knight Won’t Sink The Titanic

Enough is enough. I’m calling it so we can all move on - The Dark Knight WILL NOT beat the domestic gross of Titanic. It’s just not going to happen, $15 IMAX ticket sellouts or not. At 342mil, the film is still about 60mil away from eclipsing 2002’s Spider-Man and more than 80mil from 2006’s Dead Man’s Chest, and about to enter it’s third week of release - the week where even well performing films slow down considerably no matter how popular.

1997’s Titanic, in contrast, started slow - built over a series of weeks, slowed down, then won a record amount of Oscars, giving the film it’s second best day of its entire run 56 days into release at a measly 13.1mil. A recent E! Online article highlights how Titanic grew its audience over time, rather than play the “How Much Audience Can We Keep Week-to-Week” game of recent challengers…

Opener smaller than The Flintstones. (Titanic is the 238th “biggest” of all time)

Play at fewer theaters, at your peak, than Lost in Space.

Never, ever make more than $13.6 million in a single day.

Post your second-biggest day ($13.1 million) on your 58th day in release.

Instead of falling by 50 percent in your second weekend, go up by 24 percent.

Go up by 25 percent in your fifth weekend.

Don’t sell fewer than $1 million worth of tickets until…day 102.

Bottom Line: The way to 600mil is to build an audience with repeat customers who bring friends week-to-week. A portion of The Dark Knight’s audience is returning, no doubt - but they aren’t bringing friends the second time around.