I know many locals (appleonya for one) agreed with me with the boat movie's trite story. Yet so did AVATAR, and yet both made insane business everywhere, and I literally mean everywhere. As trite as that story can be, I suppose audiences at every corner from NYC to a oasis in Libya to huts in Tibet relate to that "universal" story in regards to the social-economical divides and romance. (Plus boobs.)

I want to be a dismissive snob for why TITANIC still holds insane power hold on audiences apparently, but...money don't lie.

I remember back in '98, Siskel & Ebert actually did an episode debating why that movie was being so damn successful at unprecedented levels. (Most movies then, as still the norm today, make most of their money on opening weekend. TITANIC weekend after weekend was increasingly doing better business.) You can find that clip on YouTube, but I suppose the late Siskel explained that phenomenon best, after observing his young daughters watch that movie: People are re-discovering, and that new generation is learning, that movies aren't television.

Anyway, those $$$ figures I pointed out how much has changed in Hollywood in the last 15 years. Even as late as the 1990s, America was the majority market/$$$ for studios with foreign territories the extra gravy. Now it's reversed. America is merely just another market. Consider that the TITANIC re-release has done over $40 million in the states, which is splendid business for a movie that's available on DVD and TV, or on par with the recent Disney re-releases. The re-release totals world-wide so far? $190 million.

In 1998, Russia and Chinese were fresh new Hollywood markets just opening up. TITANIC had the Russian record for years with a mere $7 million. Now that's the re-release's opening weekend in Russia. China especially, with over 1 billion folks, could someday threaten to become a more important box-office turf than America.