How much money did ‘Titanic’ make at the box office?

In 1997 when James Cameron’s ‘Titanic’ was released, it wasn’t expected to do as well as it did, or have the overwhelming praise it has received over the years.

With a love story set on a doomed passenger liner ship, the movie follows Jack Dawson and Rose Dewitt Bukater played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

The young stars, who were in their early twenties at the time of filming, each made a name for themselves following the success of the film, leading successful careers in the years since the movie premiered.

Despite the film’s success, the movie had a difficult creative process, with budget increases, longer than expected shooting days, and requests to make the film shorter, which all made the movie a gamble for movie studios to invest in. Here’s how it made its mark on the world of cinema.

Choppy waters for ‘Titanic’

With an original budget of $110 million, the cost of creating a new sound stage complete with horizon tanks to emulate the look of the ocean pushed the budget to $200 million and later to $295 million.

Shooting was extended from 138 to 160 days with a delayed release from July 1997 to December, forcing Paramount and Fox studios to agree, having already invested so much into the film.

The final film spanned just over three hours, with no A-List celebrities on the credits. Cameron ignored requests to shorten the movie, and went so far as to forfeit his salary and percentage of gross (an estimated $8,000,000) in order to give the movie the green light to be shown at 194 minutes.

The result? The movie opened by earning $28,638,131 during its first weekend and grossed over $1.8 billion worldwide.

Can the 25th anniversary re-release live up to the hype?

With the re-release coming up soon, it is expected to earn at least $15 million in domestic weekend sales.

Sunday’s Super Bowl could potentially halt theater attendance, but is still expected to enjoy a successful weekend.

This is in contrast with the 2012 re-release, which opened at $10 million, but enjoyed later success, pushing the movie’s worldwide gross to $2.195 billion, but maintaining its spot as the third highest-earning movie, with Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ still at first place at $2.9 billion.