"11 box office kings that became part of Hollywood history; Movies that hit the jackpot (and one that hit an iceberg, too)" by Mark Feeney | Globe Staff April 01, 2012
Paramount Pictures/20th Century Fox
This April 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of a certain very famous ship. This Wednesday sees the release of the 3-D version of a certain very famous movie about that sinking. So when Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet now stand at the ship’s bow — spoiler alert: The name of the ship is the Titanic (that’s the name of the movie, too) — they’re really going to be at the bow.
Oddly, I haven't gone to any of the 3-D movies I've already seen.
The mightiest man-made moving object up to that time, the Titanic was a monument to numbers: 882 feet long, 100 feet high, 92 feet wide, with a displacement of 52,000 tons. James Cameron’s “Titanic” proved to be a monument to numbers, too — or at least the numbers most noticed in Hollywood, box-office grosses. Released in 1997, it’s celebrating its 15th anniversary. Less than 10 weeks after opening, it had overtaken “Jurassic Park” as the largest-grossing film of all time. “Titanic” would hold that title for another dozen years, until a certain other Cameron-directed film surpassed it.
The rerelease of “Titanic” could be the occasion to assess many things: great screen love stories, DiCaprio’s and Winslet’s careers, the amount of overtime earned by Cameron’s accountants, the dramatic possibilities a shortage of lifeboats can afford, and, well, you get the idea.
Instead of any of those topics, let’s us look at something far more important in terms of movie history: that exclusive list “Titanic” joined in 1998. Being king of the world is one thing. Being king of the box office, that’s quite another.
(Note: Because of rereleases, some movies now have a larger box-office figure than that of the movie that originally surpassed them.)
This April 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of a certain very famous ship. This Wednesday sees the release of the 3-D version of a certain very famous movie about that sinking. So when Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet now stand at the ship’s bow — spoiler alert: The name of the ship is the Titanic (that’s the name of the movie, too) — they’re really going to be at the bow.
Oddly, I haven't gone to any of the 3-D movies I've already seen.
The mightiest man-made moving object up to that time, the Titanic was a monument to numbers: 882 feet long, 100 feet high, 92 feet wide, with a displacement of 52,000 tons. James Cameron’s “Titanic” proved to be a monument to numbers, too — or at least the numbers most noticed in Hollywood, box-office grosses. Released in 1997, it’s celebrating its 15th anniversary. Less than 10 weeks after opening, it had overtaken “Jurassic Park” as the largest-grossing film of all time. “Titanic” would hold that title for another dozen years, until a certain other Cameron-directed film surpassed it.
The rerelease of “Titanic” could be the occasion to assess many things: great screen love stories, DiCaprio’s and Winslet’s careers, the amount of overtime earned by Cameron’s accountants, the dramatic possibilities a shortage of lifeboats can afford, and, well, you get the idea.
Instead of any of those topics, let’s us look at something far more important in terms of movie history: that exclusive list “Titanic” joined in 1998. Being king of the world is one thing. Being king of the box office, that’s quite another.
(Note: Because of rereleases, some movies now have a larger box-office figure than that of the movie that originally surpassed them.)
THE BIRTH OF A NATION (1915)
D. W. Griffith’s epic story of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, based on Thomas F. Dixon Jr.’s novel “The Clansman,” was the first movie sensation: a work of art, a source of controversy, and a box-office smash. It was also the first feature film screened at the White House. President Woodrow Wilson is reputed to have said, “It’s like writing history with lightning.” Griffith’s film could have drawn more accurate praise from the chairman of the Federal Reserve: “It’s like printing money, with or without lightning.”
Running time: 190 min.
Box office: $11 million (estimated)
Oscar nominations: Not applicable
Oscar wins: NA
Best picture: NA
GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
Who needed CGI so long as there was the Civil War? It worked for Griffith, and now it worked for producer David O. Selznick, with the movie version of Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling novel. “GWTW” made Vivien Leigh a star. It gave Clark Gable his most famous line. It remains the crown jewel of Hollywood’s annus mirabilis, which also saw the release of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Stagecoach,” and “Ninotchka,” among others. One other thing? Adjusted for inflation “GWTW” remains the all-time box-office champ, nearly $200 million ahead of the runner-up, “Star Wars.”
Running time: 238 min.
Box office: $400 million
Oscar nominations: 13
Oscar wins: 8
Best picture: yes
THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
The headline on Pauline Kael’s New Republic review, “The Sound of Money,” put it just about right. “Mary Poppins” had made Julie Andrews a star. The movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, with a score that boasted “My Favorite Things,” made her a superstar. It also nearly destroyed Hollywood. “Hey, a bloated musical is the first movie to hit nine figures? Why, we can do that, too!” Hence “Doctor Doolittle,” “Darling Lili,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” all of which sang a doleful version of “Do-Re-Mi” at the box office.
Running time: 174 min.
Box office: $286 million
Oscar nominations: 10
Oscar wins: 5
Best picture: yes
THE GODFATHER (1972)
Like “GWTW,” it was based on a best-selling novel. It was the first film on the list to spawn sequels — but not the last. It was the last (so far, anyway) to have one of those sequels be of comparable artistic merit to the original. Note, by the way, how the length of time between titleholders has begun to diminish radically. It took “GWTW” a quarter century to overtake “Birth of a Nation.” “The Sound of Music” also needed a quarter century to claim the title. “The Godfather” came along seven years after “Music” and would stay in first place for just three years.
Running time: 175 min.
Box office: $268.5 million
Oscar nominations: 11
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: yes
JAWS (1975)
It was shaping up as a fiasco: seriously over budget, even more seriously behind schedule, and don’t forget that the mechanical shark was so balky that director Steven Spielberg was reduced to showing it as little as possible on-screen. So? So it turned out not to be a fiasco. “Jaws” changed how movies were marketed, putting in place a new formula that each subsequent champ would follow to some degree. Call it the Blockbuster Equation. Open very wide and in the summer. Advertise heavily on television. Emphasize special effects. Aim at the youth market.
Running time: 124 min.
Box office: $471 million
Oscar nominations: 4
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: no
STAR WARS (1977)
The only film on the list to undergo a subsequent name change. Now it’s (take a deep breath) “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” “Jaws” invented the new box-office rules. “SWEIV:ANH” perfected them, adding two new elements: sci-fi/fantasy and not just including special effects but making them the true star.
Running time: 121 min.
Box office: $775 million
Oscar nominations: 10
Oscar wins: 6
Best picture: no
Why the rip job when it comes to Star Wars?
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
Spielberg became the first director to appear on the list twice — but he wouldn’t be the last. Having done it once with a scary, death-dealing creature from the ocean, he reclaimed the title with a lovable, life-affirming creature from outer space. (Note that this is the third consecutive film on the list with a score by John Williams. Talk about “the sound of money.”)
Running time: 115 min.
Box office: $793 million
Oscar nominations: 9
Oscar wins: 4
Best picture: no
JURASSIC PARK (1993)
Spielberg makes his third appearance — and Williams his fourth. Once again it’s creatures — this time from the past, instead of the ocean or another planet. Also “Jurassic Park” shows the utility of having a popular literary original to pave the way to success. Like “GWTW,” “The Godfather,” and “Jaws,” Spielberg’s film about a dinosaur theme park originated as a best-selling novel (thank you, Michael Crichton).
Running time: 127 min.
Box office: $915 million
Oscar nominations: 3
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: no
TITANIC (1997)
Like the other nautical movie on the list, “Titanic” was shaping up as a flop. Actually, it was much worse that that. Cameron had spent $200 million making it, and this was back when $200 million was real money. Would this be “Waterworld” with an iceberg? There had also been major delays in special-effects work, meaning the opening had to be moved from a prime summer release date to just before Christmas. Reaction to an advance screening at the Toronto International Film Festival was reported to be “tepid.” Well, that was then, and this is now.
Running time: 194 min.
Box office: $1.843 billion
Oscar nominations: 14
Oscar wins: 11
Best picture: yes
AVATAR (2009)
Cameron’s second appearance on the list, and the only film on it to feature 10-foot-tall blue creatures with faces like cats. It’s also the only all-time box-office champ to be initially released in 3-D. You already know about the “Titanic” rerelease. A 3-D rerelease for “Jurassic Park” has been announced for next year. And, for what it’s worth, the second “Jaws” sequel (perhaps inevitably?) was “Jaws 3D.” If there’s ever a “Godfather III-D” let’s hope they leave out Sofia Coppola’s character.
Running time: 162 min.
Box office: $2.782 billion
Oscar nominations: 9
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: no
D. W. Griffith’s epic story of the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, based on Thomas F. Dixon Jr.’s novel “The Clansman,” was the first movie sensation: a work of art, a source of controversy, and a box-office smash. It was also the first feature film screened at the White House. President Woodrow Wilson is reputed to have said, “It’s like writing history with lightning.” Griffith’s film could have drawn more accurate praise from the chairman of the Federal Reserve: “It’s like printing money, with or without lightning.”
Running time: 190 min.
Box office: $11 million (estimated)
Oscar nominations: Not applicable
Oscar wins: NA
Best picture: NA
GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
Who needed CGI so long as there was the Civil War? It worked for Griffith, and now it worked for producer David O. Selznick, with the movie version of Margaret Mitchell’s best-selling novel. “GWTW” made Vivien Leigh a star. It gave Clark Gable his most famous line. It remains the crown jewel of Hollywood’s annus mirabilis, which also saw the release of “The Wizard of Oz,” “Stagecoach,” and “Ninotchka,” among others. One other thing? Adjusted for inflation “GWTW” remains the all-time box-office champ, nearly $200 million ahead of the runner-up, “Star Wars.”
Running time: 238 min.
Box office: $400 million
Oscar nominations: 13
Oscar wins: 8
Best picture: yes
THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)
The headline on Pauline Kael’s New Republic review, “The Sound of Money,” put it just about right. “Mary Poppins” had made Julie Andrews a star. The movie version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, with a score that boasted “My Favorite Things,” made her a superstar. It also nearly destroyed Hollywood. “Hey, a bloated musical is the first movie to hit nine figures? Why, we can do that, too!” Hence “Doctor Doolittle,” “Darling Lili,” “Paint Your Wagon,” “Hello, Dolly!,” “Finian’s Rainbow,” all of which sang a doleful version of “Do-Re-Mi” at the box office.
Running time: 174 min.
Box office: $286 million
Oscar nominations: 10
Oscar wins: 5
Best picture: yes
THE GODFATHER (1972)
Like “GWTW,” it was based on a best-selling novel. It was the first film on the list to spawn sequels — but not the last. It was the last (so far, anyway) to have one of those sequels be of comparable artistic merit to the original. Note, by the way, how the length of time between titleholders has begun to diminish radically. It took “GWTW” a quarter century to overtake “Birth of a Nation.” “The Sound of Music” also needed a quarter century to claim the title. “The Godfather” came along seven years after “Music” and would stay in first place for just three years.
Running time: 175 min.
Box office: $268.5 million
Oscar nominations: 11
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: yes
JAWS (1975)
It was shaping up as a fiasco: seriously over budget, even more seriously behind schedule, and don’t forget that the mechanical shark was so balky that director Steven Spielberg was reduced to showing it as little as possible on-screen. So? So it turned out not to be a fiasco. “Jaws” changed how movies were marketed, putting in place a new formula that each subsequent champ would follow to some degree. Call it the Blockbuster Equation. Open very wide and in the summer. Advertise heavily on television. Emphasize special effects. Aim at the youth market.
Running time: 124 min.
Box office: $471 million
Oscar nominations: 4
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: no
20th Century Fox/ap
Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill in a scene from "Star Wars." STAR WARS (1977)
The only film on the list to undergo a subsequent name change. Now it’s (take a deep breath) “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.” “Jaws” invented the new box-office rules. “SWEIV:ANH” perfected them, adding two new elements: sci-fi/fantasy and not just including special effects but making them the true star.
Running time: 121 min.
Box office: $775 million
Oscar nominations: 10
Oscar wins: 6
Best picture: no
Why the rip job when it comes to Star Wars?
E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)
Spielberg became the first director to appear on the list twice — but he wouldn’t be the last. Having done it once with a scary, death-dealing creature from the ocean, he reclaimed the title with a lovable, life-affirming creature from outer space. (Note that this is the third consecutive film on the list with a score by John Williams. Talk about “the sound of money.”)
Running time: 115 min.
Box office: $793 million
Oscar nominations: 9
Oscar wins: 4
Best picture: no
JURASSIC PARK (1993)
Spielberg makes his third appearance — and Williams his fourth. Once again it’s creatures — this time from the past, instead of the ocean or another planet. Also “Jurassic Park” shows the utility of having a popular literary original to pave the way to success. Like “GWTW,” “The Godfather,” and “Jaws,” Spielberg’s film about a dinosaur theme park originated as a best-selling novel (thank you, Michael Crichton).
Running time: 127 min.
Box office: $915 million
Oscar nominations: 3
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: no
Paramount Pictures/20th Century Fox
Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in “Titanic.”TITANIC (1997)
Like the other nautical movie on the list, “Titanic” was shaping up as a flop. Actually, it was much worse that that. Cameron had spent $200 million making it, and this was back when $200 million was real money. Would this be “Waterworld” with an iceberg? There had also been major delays in special-effects work, meaning the opening had to be moved from a prime summer release date to just before Christmas. Reaction to an advance screening at the Toronto International Film Festival was reported to be “tepid.” Well, that was then, and this is now.
Running time: 194 min.
Box office: $1.843 billion
Oscar nominations: 14
Oscar wins: 11
Best picture: yes
WETA/20th Century Fox
Sam Worthington as Jake Sully and Zoe Saldana as Neytiri in "Avatar." AVATAR (2009)
Cameron’s second appearance on the list, and the only film on it to feature 10-foot-tall blue creatures with faces like cats. It’s also the only all-time box-office champ to be initially released in 3-D. You already know about the “Titanic” rerelease. A 3-D rerelease for “Jurassic Park” has been announced for next year. And, for what it’s worth, the second “Jaws” sequel (perhaps inevitably?) was “Jaws 3D.” If there’s ever a “Godfather III-D” let’s hope they leave out Sofia Coppola’s character.
Running time: 162 min.
Box office: $2.782 billion
Oscar nominations: 9
Oscar wins: 3
Best picture: no
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Good night to go to the movies:
"With ‘Titanic 3-D,’ the bigger, the better; 3-D treatment adds new depth to movie" by Ty Burr | Globe Staff, April 06, 2012
Wait, wasn’t “Titanic” already in 3-D?
Maybe it just felt that way. When James Cameron’s movie first launched in 1997 — on a poisonous wave of buzz predicting a disaster movie of the box-office kind — everything about it seemed bigger than expected. There was the boat, obviously, a massive, mostly digital re-creation of the doomed liner in all her 46,000-ton, 882-foot glory. There was a huge cast of characters, fictional and real, an epic running time (three hours and 12 minutes), and a swooning romance that played to teenage girls of all ages and genders by equating puppy love with the most storied nautical catastrophe of the 20th century.
The reception was equally monstrous: 15 weeks atop the box office, 11 Oscars, and a 12-year run as the biggest movie moneymaker of all time (until Cameron’s “Avatar” came along to unseat it, in 2009). Isn’t that enough? Do we really need a three-dimensionalized “Titanic” brought back into theaters?
Well, yeah, we do. Movies this convincingly big need to be experienced big, and “Titanic” has been languishing on home screens for too long.
I actually agree with him there. Hollywood does have one advantage with the large screen. Too bad they turn out such s***.
I have a pair of teenage daughters who were respectively two years and eight months old when the film opened, in December 1997, and while they discovered it in due time on DVD — and marveled and sobbed and worshipped at the flame of baby-faced Leonardo DiCaprio as their sistren had done before them — they understood that this is a film to wrap around your head in a dark room full of strangers. So when I asked them if they wanted to come to the opening night of “Titanic 3-D,” they readily agreed. Not excitedly — having seen the movie about six times each, they have a pretty good idea how it ends — but with a mixture of pleasure and duty, as though visiting the Statue of Liberty.
The biggest surprise: The 3-D is good — excellent, even. Maybe that’s to be expected, since Cameron did move the technological ball several dozen yards upfield with “Avatar,” but audiences have been subjected to too many headache-inducing post-production 3-D jobs in recent years.
See: Globe's Afternoon Matinee
That's why I decided to go at night.
What does 3-D bring to a movie, anyway, except an unconvincing illusion of depth in a story that’s often too shallow? “Titanic” is all about depth of field, though — and size and scale and human emotions against the widest backdrop imaginable. Cameron’s reputation as a detail-obsessed monomaniac has paid off with an $18 million 3-D refurb that includes a 4K digital remastering, and “Titanic” looks crisper, more present, than I remembered. Even better, it seems richer in detail, since the meticulously recalibrated planes of action draw your eye to parts of the screen you’d never noticed before.
It’s the first post-production 3-D conversion that looks like the film was originally shot in the format; even reflections off water and glass — notoriously difficult to get right — pass muster without a glitch. And in this enhanced playland, Cameron’s archetypal characters seem all the more compelling within the larger scrim of sea and steel and ice and decking. The storybook romance of Rose and Jack is more intimate now that the money scenes of disaster seem to stretch out toward the vanishing point; the iconic “flying shot” at the bow more breathtakingly places the human against the infinite. (Yes, it’s corny; yes, it works; yes, my daughters snurfled and gripped each other’s hands when it came.) Even the class structure of 1912 society feels more vivid: The stately stuffed-shirt millionaires in their spacious compartments and dining hall, the milling immigrants in steerage.
Two shots in particular bring home what 3-D can add when it works. The first is an apparent throwaway: a long shot looking down a tilting lower-decks corridor as water creeps along the floor toward the audience. The illusion of depth adds menace by involving the viewer; more than ever, we’re at the near end of that hallway, lifting our feet in panic. The second shot broke my heart when I saw “Titanic” in 1997 and broke it anew in 2012: The view from the returning lifeboat as it plows through a sea of frozen corpses reaching into the night. With this movie, Cameron explicitly wanted us to imagine an unimaginable event, a tragedy too big for our senses to easily encompass. More than any image in “Titanic,” that shot of the floating dead conveys both the immensity of the loss and its specificity — the sheer scope of disaster and the individual humans within it.
The central love story? Still easy to scoff at if you fancy yourself too refined for well-produced populism, easier still to give into its passionate purpleness all over again. Anyway, isn’t this one reason most people go to movies — to see elemental human drama played out against a backdrop of spectacle? (And say what you will about Cameron’s script for “Titanic,” but it’s Shakespeare compared to the doggerel he wrote for “Avatar.”)
The war promoters really hated that movie, huh?
Spectacle is what the sinking of the Titanic is about. It’s why the event lives on in the popular culture when disasters less easily romanticized — like the 1904 fire that killed more than 1,000 women and children on the steamship General Slocum in New York’s East River — have been forgotten. It’s why viewers keep coming back to “Titanic” on DVD, why they’ll probably make the theatrical rerelease a hit, why my daughters once more wept happy tears of tragedy. If 3-D is the bait that gets audiences back to where an epic should be seen — in a theater, as part of a crowd — then Cameron’s gamble will have been worthwhile. The only imaginable downside is if huge profits for “Titanic 3-D” send the film industry to ransacking and “improving” the spectacles of the past. Are you ready for “Gone With the Wind 3-D”?
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Also see: A Titanic obsession
"Film director tours earth’s deepest point; Cameron returns from observing Marianas Trench" Associated Press / March 27, 2012
“Titanic’’ director James Cameron dove to the earth’s deepest point in a specially designed submarine, the National Geographic Society said, making him the first man to travel alone to the near 7-mile depth of the Marianas Trench. He reached a depth of 35,756 feet and stayed on the bottom for about three hours before he began his return to the surface.
Click to continue reading this article.
Only problem is that link goes to an entirely different story.
I'm not surprised the agenda-pushing, war-promoting, AmeriKan MSM missed the point and dumped on Cameron at the same time.
Time to walk out on this movie.
