I think you need to check box office mojo, Titanic did play in China but it only managed to make $43 million there.  Titanic's success is overblown one of the main reasons it made all that money because it stayed in theaters for a long ass time (287 days).  It might have been the first movie to cross $600 million domestically but it will also always be the slowest movie to get to $600 million dollars since pretty much no movie gets even close to being in theaters for over 200 days now.

You cannot compare the Chinese boxoffice from back to the current one. This past week, China just had the biggest boxoffice grossing a week ever - more that during the week of TFA's release in the US+Canada.

Titanic stayed in theatres because people kept going to watch it - do you think it would have still been playing if no one was going? The movie made $28M in its 8th week-end compared to TFA's $6M. Titanic just had amazing legs.

I think Titanic is awful. Bland sentimentality, stereotyped as fuck, boring as hell... So I can't say I'm happy about this, but what can I do?

Welp.

Hopefully Episode IX is able to do what TFA didn't. It had a nice run.

The Force Awakens already has beaten Titanic's original box office run of $1.8 billion. I don't think it's fair to count multiple re-releases vs. a movie that's only had one run. So for original runs TFA (2015/16) > Titanic (1997/98), both in the US and globally. 

And yes Titanic DID benefit from China, the 3D re-release was in China a few years ago and did a lot of business there.

Inflation adjusted yes Titanic beats any modern movie including Avatar, but the original 1977 Star Wars (A New Hope) in that case beats both of them rather easily.

So this is kinda an iffy comparison, Star Wars has its own things to crow about where it does beat Titanic. 

TFA will eventually get a re-release, it will only have to earn in the neighborhood of $130 million or so worldwide most likely to beat Titanic's overall total, which should be fairly easy. Disney should hold off some deleted scenes and they'll be able to hit that easy in a re-release. 

Well the main reason it had good legs is because 1998 wasn't exactly a stellar year for movies so it really didn't have much competition. 

Sooo that makes it #3? And I guess Avatar is still #1?

Titanic did have amazing legs that said, Titanic came out at a time when people watched movies on blurry VHS tapes and the average home TV was a 4:3 ratio 25 inches in crappy SD resolution, there was no Netflix or easy download of pirated movies online.

Today most homes have a large theatrical LCD/plasma screens of 40-50 inches, high definition, way more things to watch and do and the movie ticket issue cuts both ways ... yes tickets are more expensive today, but that also keeps a lot people away from the theater today (why pay $12 a ticket for a movie when you have a big screen at home).

Titanic would not have made that kind of money with the competitive issues TFA has to deal with, people would've seen it 1-2 times, not 3-4 times like a lot of people did.

It also had a run where a lot of crap was coming out. Once it was clear of the Bond movie in late 1997, it was pretty much clear sailing (no pun intended) for a long period of time. 

You're probably too young to understand this, but in the past watching movies at home on a rinky dink small tube TV (most homes did not have a home theater setup either) pan & scanned to 4:3 was just missing the experience. 

People would go watch movies multiple times in the 70s/80s/90s etc. I saw Jurassic Park like 4 times in theaters myself and that wasn't all the uncommon. 

Society has changed these days where people are inundated with too much to watch/read/listen to/play constantly at their fingers all day and the flat panel TVs have dramatically improved the home viewing experience, that people just watch something once, maybe twice at most even if they really love it and that's it. 

The 90s was the last real decade of the "I've seen this movie 6 times at the theater!" type craze. 

Also generally speaking back in those days, there wasn't a new "big" movie every week. Like you got 2-3 "big" movies every summer maybe (ie: Terminator 2 and Robin Hood or Batman Returns and Leathal Weapon 3) so there was a tendency for the "big" movies to play longer because they were more rare. 

But nowadays evey studio wants a big tentpole movie, not just for the summer, but they want like 2-3 every summer each and even more spread out in other times of the year. 

NobleTeam360 said: Titanic is a great movie, Star Wars doesn't interest me in the slightest and I still find it funny when I get these odd looks when I tell people I've never watched a Star Wars movie

You should watch the original trilogy, just for the iconic John Williams' score. The music fits so well and creates emotion with each scene that I don't think many (if any) other composers could match that, Hans Zimmer in Rush maybe.