Monday, January 12, 1998
Expected sinker ‘Titanic’ floats at the box office
FILM:Cameron hopes to strike emotional chord with his epic-sized
movie
By Tommy Nguyen
Daily Bruin Contributor
Last year’s Oscar season saw four independent films as best
picture nominees. "The English Patient" ended up carrying the flag,
prompting many film writers to dub Oscar night "Independence
Day."
But things have changed. The empire has struck back.
With "L.A. Confidential," "As Good as It Gets" and "Amistad"
receiving most of the Oscar buzz, 1997 was the year of the studios.
And it’s only appropriate that 1997 would be led by the
quintessential studio film of the century.
Clocking in at an average speed of $50 million per week is
"Titanic," director James Cameron’s love story starring Leonardo
DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Cameron jokingly calls it a "$200
million chick flick."
"Titanic" is on course to meet that rare coordinate on the movie
map: it can pull off a "Forrest Gump" by becoming not only the best
picture by Academy standards, but also the box office champ for the
same release year.
"Most movies go down gradually (in box office returns) week to
week," explains Brian Fuson, box office analyst for the Hollywood
Reporter. "’Titanic’ went up 23 percent in its second weekend,
which is very exceptional. And in its third weekend, it went down
only 6 percent, when the average drop of a film in its third
weekend is 30-35 percent."
The box office momentum of "Titanic" is even more remarkable
considering that the movie carries a hefty cargo of three hours and
14 minutes, a running time which limits the number of shows per
screen. It’s a detriment Cameron is well aware of, one of the many
calculated drawbacks of the movie’s marketability.
"When the green light was given for the film, the budget was
$125 million," Cameron points out. "So it already put it in a
certain level of film-making that is normally protected by the fact
that it’s a sequel to another film, or that it can become a
franchise if it’s successful … toys, video games, amusement
parks.
"But ‘Titanic’ is a ‘one-er’: you’re not going to make a sequel
and you’re not going to do all these ancillary profit sources. So
it was risky from the very beginning."
The risks grew as the movie’s budget sailed faster and upward.
There were rumors that pegged the final budget at an obscene $287
million, but Cameron insists that the amount rests somewhere around
$200 million.
But either amount places "Titanic" as the most costly movie ever
made. Twentieth Century Fox, the studio that initiated the project,
had to sell its domestic distribution rights to Paramount Pictures
(at $65 million) to alleviate their financial migraines. And
feeling responsible for the monster he created, Cameron ended up
biting the bullet as well by forfeiting his director’s fee and
profit participation (though Cameron will keep his six-figure
writer’s fee for the work he did three years ago).
"It meant a great deal to me for (Fox) to understand that I was
not just trying to spend all their money to make my movie more
glorious," Cameron said in the December-January issue of Movieline
magazine. "I felt morally compelled to put my money where my mouth
was."
The budget drama of the pre-released "Titanic," along with the
production’s numerous mishaps and clashes on deck, had been bandied
about in Hollywood all year. Even Daily Variety printed daily
"Titanic" updates; news eventually trickled down to the mainstream
media and to the public. The movie was delayed several times: from
July 2 to mid-August, finally settling on Dec. 19. But according to
Cameron, the delays didn’t entirely stem from the production
glitches – the "Waterworld"-esque gloom saturating both public and
industry opinion demanded some tactical navigation.
"It’s been beneficial (to move back the release date) of the
film from a media standpoint," Cameron explains. "The budget was
big news last summer and would continue to be big news right
through the release. People would be reviewing the budget. Now,
people are seeing the film."
And the response has been mostly positive. Though it’s been
dwarfed by "L.A. Confidential’s" steamrolling of all five major
critics awards for best picture, the movie has been riding on a
steady wave of critical approval. However, "Titanic" hasn’t been
well-received by the top-drawer critics in Los Angeles. The movie
has especially become the Love Boat among the majority of reviewers
on the east coast.
"For it was by no means clear that the bastards could do it –
that anyone in Hollywood could put together, in this age of
cynicism and ineptitude, a hearty big entertainment in the manner
of such broadly pleasing, Oscar-winning movies as, say, ‘Ben Hur,’"
writes New York magazine’s David Denby in his review of the film.
"But James Cameron has pulled it off."
Janet Maslin, film critic for The New York Times, writes in her
review that "Mr. Cameron rises to the occasion with a simple,
captivating narrative style, one that cares little for subtlety but
overflows with wonderful, well-chosen Hollywood hokum." Maslin also
writes: "Delayed release and outrageous costs made ‘Titanic’ the
joke of the summer. Now it’s the movie of the year." Rolling Stone
magazine also places "Titanic" as its No. 1 movie of the year.
The critical support for "Titanic" has certainly helped the
movie garner eight Golden Globe nominations, leading the rest of
the field. And should it win for best dramatic picture at the
ceremonies next week, expect a tsunami of an entrance when
"Titanic" docks on Oscar night.
Cameron hopes, however, that all this commercial and critical
hype is ultimately in the service of the story being told. Cameron
has remarked a few times that "Titanic" is his "Schindler’s List,"
a comparison which links him to Steven Spielberg, another
big-budget director who has had successful ventures into the realm
of ambitious, "substance" film-making. And as it is the case with
all large ambitions, there comes even larger expectations. Cameron
has a few of his own.
"The average audience member doesn’t have a big investment in
the film, the event (of the Titanic’s sinking), from an emotional
standpoint," Cameron says. "But the goal of the film for me was to
get the audience to that place. Get an appreciation for its
history."
And once audience members can arrive at the place through the
voyage of the movie, Cameron believes they can learn from the
experience.
"History has shown that almost every technology brings a curse
with it. The lesson of the Titanic is just don’t go so fast. When
you’re dealing with that much power and kinetic energy of a ship
that weighs 40,000 tons, just don’t go so fast. Give yourself some
time to turn."
But for the studio film of the century, from its financing to
its high technology to its epic-sized storyboard, "Titanic" is
still charging forward, ready to smash through box office records.
And ain’t nobody on board trying to turn this ship now.
FILM: "Titanic" is currently in theaters.
Paramount Pictures
Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet) find love on
board James Cameron’s "Titanic."