Ticket prices aren't double today, at least not where I live. It cost about 8.50 to see a movie in 1997, and now it costs 12.00. Keep in mind that movie ticket prices don't track precisely with the rate of inflation, and the change in the cost of a gallon of milk or a dozen eggs is not duplicated by the prices of all goods and services.
More to the point, however, realize that Titanic came out in the days before streaming videos, when the internet was still in its infancy, and if you wanted to see Titanic you had to go to a theater and see it. If you wanted to rewatch key senes, there was no YouTube on which to find them. You bought another ticket, and watched the movie again. And, significantly, there was no pandemic keeping theaters closed, and/or people at home.
Titanic also had other advantages. Leonardo Dicaprio was the hottest teen star, so every teen and preteen girl had to see the movie at least three times. Meanwhile, adult male action fans had to see it just to see the ship sink. CGI was still a big new thing, and the scene of the Titanic sinking was a major draw. Nothing like that had been seen before onscreen. Add to those two built-in audiences the female rom-com demographic, who needed to see it for the love story, as well as its run up to the Oscars, where every Serious Movie Fan had to see it, then top it off with the post-Oscars "I simply must see the winning picture" audience, and you see how an otherwise average film soared to the top of the charts.
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enriquesingh (1812)
3 years ago
2022 ticket prices are MORE than double what they were in 1997, this is a fact.
Here you go: https://www.natoonline.org/data/ticket-price/
Back in the 90s it was easier to watch a movie several times, you just stayed in your seat and nobody would remove you, now a lot (most?) of theaters assign seats.
What relevance do your other points have to do with the gross of any movie, every movie can be analyzed why were they a success or a failure... if Titanic had sold the same amount of tickets it sold in 1997 with 2021 prices it would have grossed over 3.5B.
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FilmBuff (7438)
3 years ago
Your final sentence disproves your argument. No film is going to make $3.5 billion today, or any time soon. The data in the link is misleading as well. I don't know how they are computing those numbers, but they bear no reflection to reality. They may be pricing backwards using inflation rates, or it may be an average, but the price of a ticket in Nebraska is quite different from that in San Francisco, and way more people are buying tickets in San Francisco. In major U.S. cities, it cost around $7-8 to see Titanic, and now it costs about $12-13 Spider-Man.
The bottom line is that Titanic today would not make nearly what it made in 1997. It caught a perfect wave at a perfect time. For Spider-Man to pass it in today's economy, during a global pandemic, is astonishing, and one can only imagine how much more it would have made were it released in 1997.
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enriquesingh (1812)
3 years ago
So you are telling me that hundreds of sites are wrong regarding ticket price inflation, but you are correct without any analysis, just because you say so... ok.
All of your other arguments are completely irrelevant.
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FilmBuff (7438)
3 years ago
My argument that far more people went to cinemas to see movies in 1997 than 2021 is irrelevant?
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alienzen (1931)
3 years ago
Ticket prices in WHICH COUNTRY? You realise that only the US uses the American dollar as a currency right? You also realise that exchange rates are always changing? Who sits in a theater to see a movie twice back to back on the same day? Weirdos? Maybe. There were no huge ultra high definition surround sound home cinemas in 1997. No online movie streaming, no online movie piracy meaning you could not see a movie online for free the day it came out at the cinema.
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