It's strange to think that it is over a decade since James Cameron's Titanic was launched and despite many major movies being launched in the interim period Titanic still holds the record for being the biggest box office movie of all time with takings in excess of $600,000,000. Yes when adjusted for inflation Titanic is surpassed by Gone With the Wind but still Titanic remains the benchmark for box office success which many movies try to emulate.

If you look at Titanic and the circumstantial evidence there are lots of reasons why it became the biggest box office movie of all time and gives a reason why no movie has come close to beating it.

Even before Titanic was released in December 1997 it had received an inordinate amount of press coverage. Right from day one of production there were rumours being circulated that Titanic would be the biggest and most expensive movie ever made. This coverage continued right up until it was released with regular pieces on how Cameron strived for perfection in recreating the now iconic ship. In fact there was several articles released on how major errors in filming meant that huge chunks of the movie would have to be re-shot at a huge expense. All of this press coverage no matter how negative worked in the favour of Titanic as it built up such great expectations and so when it was released those who generally would not bother with going to the movies were so intrigued by all the rumours that they had to go and see. Very few movies manage to create such a media buzz before there release, the most recent one would be "The Dark Knight" which benefited from the untimely death of Heath Ledger.

But media buzz is not enough and with high expectations Titanic had to deliver something very special, which it did. It took the historical story of the Titanic, a story which has intrigued generations ever since that fatal night when it hit an iceberg, and then combined it with a fictitious love story which gave it another dimension. These two elements combined to make one of the most commercially profitable movies as it appealed to different sets of viewers. The fact that Cameron had not only recreated the impressiveness of the Titanic but also interlaced it with actual footage of the submerged vessel made it all the more interesting to those who were watching purely for the historical aspect of the movie. Whilst the love story of Jack and Rose made it a perfect date movie. It also helped that with the stars Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio you had two young, hot actors who had mass appeal.

The strange thing is that despite delivering a truly impressive movie and living up to the high expectations, Titanic is not really the best movie ever made and that there are countless other movies which is easily out rank it in the annual list of best movies. So if the movie was good but not great what other reasons are there for it to maintain it's record of being the biggest box office hit.

Well let's look at the era of 1997-98, a time before the internet had taken hold on the masses and DVD was still in its infancy. Back then movies didn't get released domestically as quickly as they do now and so often it was the case that if you didn't want to wait to see a movie you would have to go to the cinema. You just have to look at the national statistics to see that in the last decade cinema attendances have dropped below what they were in the late 90s despite a wider range of movies being released. This fact alone gives a reason as to why it is highly unlikely that any new movie will struggle to emulate the phenomenal success of Titanic.

The other factor to do with this is that these days there is an increase in the number of people downloading movies of the internet and regularly a new box office release can be available to download illegally within a day of it's release, in some cases even before its cinematic release. This is another reason why the audience attendance figures have declined at cinemas and will contribute to the fact why it is highly unlikely that any new movie will get even close to Titanic.

If you also look at the three months following Titanic's box office release you will find it hard not to notice that the competition was incredibly poor. At that time the number of new movies being released is a lot less than these days but also that there was not one other big budget movies to be released at the same time as Titanic. With this lack of competition it is hardly a surprise that many people watched Titanic more than once on the big screen and yes as a regular movie goes back then I was one of them who watched it more than once due to the lack of anything else to watch.

It is this circumstantial evidence which provides the reason that it is very unlikely that any new movie release will beat Titanic. Even when a movie as visually impressive as "The Dark Knight" creates the media buzz to equally that of Titanic it is the fact that times have changed and the popularity of watching a movie on the big screen is not as popular as once was.