TITANIC: The Popularity Backlash

A Disingenuous Claim of Fake Outrage by the LOTR / Star Wars fanboys.

There are many critics who will punish a universally acclaimed film by giving it a harsher grade than would honestly represent their feelings. Instead of giving a certain film a C+ they give it a D- or an F just to really set their grade apart from others & manipulate the overall average grade. This occurs with great frequency on websites such as the IMDb.

However, when it comes to “Titanic”, I think 99% of people can privately agree that it would be disingenuous to give this film an F. There are far more incompetent, vile and offensive films out there that deserve that realm all to themselves. But publicly, there is a certain group who claim to hate this film as if in some sort of trendy clique.

Remember, the opposite of love is not hate... it is indifference.

There are many who can't let go of this rabid fanaticism of "pretending to hate" this film. They may hate that it is by far the most popular film ever made, but they do not hate the actual film. The popularity & media hype has skewed the overall grade down.

The supposed "haters" are predominantly (not exclusively) young men (approx. 95%) who feel that they have to put up the pretense that they would rather see a film with Vin Diesel blowing something up in a homoerotic explosion-fest, than watch a love story set amidst one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. For some reason, these 15-30 year old males are terrified of love, sex and intimacy but have no problem with films dominated by men with bulging muscles and glistening sweat dripping off their bodies as they congratulate themselves with man hugs and pats on the butt. (Proof of this statement can be found by studying the voting breakdown on imdb.com)

There is also strange division between “Titanic” fans and “LOTR”/”Star Wars” fans (You know the type!) that has emerged over the last year or two. I literally think it stems from the fact that tons of them dislike the idea of “Titanic” standing atop the ‘All Time Box Office Chart’ ahead of their beloved Sci-Fi / Fantasy adventures, and that those people put all their faith in one blockbuster after another to topple the James Cameron classic. They were sure that the Star Wars films would scale the chart to #1... then they were sure it would be Harry Potter... then finally, surely, LOTR would do it. And now there is this resignation that “Titanic” probably won't be toppled for many years, until ticket prices hit $12 a pop.

Adjusted for Inflation... Titanic - $780m LOTR3 - $380m -- Which means that more than twice as many tickets were sold for Titanic than the biggest of the three LOTR films. That is simply mind-boggling. A very impressive statistic for James Cameron's epic! (www.boxofficemojo.com) However, it is also a very depressing statistic for the rabid LOTR fanatics.

Those fanatics are getting desperate. I even read one silly argument the other day where someone claimed the LOTR series as one film. I think this made-up sport of box-office watching has created a certain anger and jealousy that manifests itself automatically in the direction of the film sitting atop the chart.

I don't have a problem with those who give “Titanic” a C, C- or in rare cases a D+... but to claim that it merits hate and disdain is simply an attempt to engage in an argument. It is simply not an honest reflection of their feelings toward the film itself.

As for the IMDb Top 250 Poll… Remember that the top 250 is not a list of the most popular and beloved films of all time... it is a list consisting of the “least hated” films of all time. The enormous and unexpected success and subsequent media hype of Titanic angered lots of people who would otherwise have either liked or ignored the film. Many people love to tear down things that reach such heights.

STATS:

According to Yahoo, TITANIC was the 12th most searched-for film of the year............. in 2002!!! That's five years after it's release! What an enduring testament to the overwhelming popularity of the film that is! Couple that with the fact that two STAR WARS films, two HARRY POTTER films, one SPIDERMAN film, and two LORD OF THE RINGS films have been released since the James Cameron epic first set sail... and none of them have even come within $150 million domestically, or $900 million worldwide in box office sales. You could combine any two of those other films and their worldwide tally wouldn't even add up to that of TITANIC's total alone. Now that's impressive!

Staying power defines popularity!

Opening weekends are a result of pre-release hype and expensive marketing campaigns. But the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th etc. weekends are a result of fantastic word of mouth and overwhelming popularity.

According to www.boxofficemojo.com, along with the records for domestic and worldwide total box office gross, Titanic has the records for the following:

Best fourth weekend (by $0.2 million)
Best fifth weekend (by $7.1 million)
Best sixth weekend (by $8.7 million)
Best seventh weekend (by $10.7 million)
Best eighth weekend (by $7.4 million)
Best ninth weekend (by $20 million)
Best tenth weekend (by $10 million)
Best eleventh weekend (by $9.2 million)
Best twelfth weekend (by $9.4 million)
Best thirteenth weekend (by $9.9 million)
Best fourteenth weekend (by $9.8 million)
Best fifteenth weekend (by $7.5 million)
Best sixteenth weekend (by $6 million)
Best seventeenth weekend (by $3.1 million)
Best eighteenth weekend (by $1.7 million)

Titanic was still in the "Top 10" 25 weeks after it was released.

OSCARS:

No film has ever had more Oscar nominations than Titanic. No film has ever had more Oscar wins than Titanic. It also swept most of the critics and press association awards.

THE TEENAGE GIRL MYTH:

I would guess that of the 12 million teenage girls in the USA... that about 50,000 of them saw the film more than 5 times. Even if you guess VERY high and say that 100,000 teen girls saw the film 10 times each, that is still only 1,000,000 viewings, which accounts for approximately $7 million of the $601 million it took in at the box office. The teen girls rumor is virtually impossible to substantiate with a straight face. But it makes the some people feel better about their arguments.

I guessed high with those numbers... but now, LET'S GUESS WITH OUTRAGEOUS NUMBERS...

Let's say that HALF-A-MILLION teenage girls in the USA saw the film 14 times each and the rest saw it once -- That would be 18.5 MILLION VIEWINGS by teenage girls. That would account for approx $110 MILLION of the $601 MILLION.

This means that TITANIC still made $490 MILLION with the rest of the country and that would STILL be enough to rank first by MORE than $30 MILLION.

© Written by TC Candler- Email Me!

How We Rated This Film TC Candler - A+ Richard Propes - B- Jacob Hall - A-