While the payoff was enormous, the risk was also high. Titanic's $200 million budget would still be huge today adjusted for inflation. It would have a $265.3 million price tag and continue to rank as one of the most expensive productions for a single movie ever.

Here are few points to put its longevity and sheer magnitude into perspective:

• Titanic earned $600.8 million when it was all said and done after nine full months in theaters.
  
• It was number one for 15 weekends in a row.
  
• It had 16 straight weekends of $10+ million grosses. In order for The Dark Knight to match that, it would need to earn eight figures every weekend until October 24th, which seems utterly impossible these days.
  
• Five weekends out-grossed its opening total of $28.6 million, including weekends two through five;
  
• It didn't experience a weekend-to-weekend decline of more than 40% until its 14th weekend and had multiple weekend increases, including 23.8% its second weekend.
  
• Its biggest day of box office was only $13.6 million as opposed to The Dark Knight's $67.2 million. However, Titanic earned $13.6 million on December 27, 1997, its ninth day of release. Its second biggest day of box office was $13.1 million on Valentine's Day of 1998, a day that presumably came roughly nine months before the biggest spike in teen pregnancy in recorded history. Maybe that's what Cameron meant with his "King of the World" proclamation since he was helping encourage the repopulation movement. There were 49 days between the film's biggest day of box office and its second biggest day. Imagine The Dark Knight having a $50 million day over the Labor Day holiday to understand the full impact of this. On second thought, don't try to envision that because you might give yourself an aneurysm.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Titanic finished in first place every day from December 19, 1997 to March 5, 1998. For 77 consecutive days, it was the most popular film in North America. The vast majority of films today don't even stay in theaters for 77 days, especially at number one. Then, it went on to be the number one film again for 20 out of the next 28 days. As of Tuesday, August 12, 2008, this second streak almost matches The Dark Knight's performance of being number one on 21 out of 26 days in release, which is spectacular. Yet, Titanic achieved this after over 100 days in release.
  
• Titanic didn't fall out of the top three on any single day of box office until April 12, 1998, its 115th day in theaters. Additionally, it wouldn't fall out of the top five until April 26, 1998, its 129th day in theaters. And it didn't fall out of the top ten on a single day until May 29, 1998, its 162nd day in release.
  
• Titanic still had a per screen average of more than $1,000 until its 30th weekend in release.
  
• Among 1998 films released during its reign at the top, only The Wedding Singer ($80.2 million), U.S. Marshals ($57.8 million), The Man in the Iron Mask ($57.0 million), Primary Colors ($39.0 million) and Sphere ($37.1 million) earned more than $30 million. The next biggest performers were Wild Things (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and – shudder to think – Spiceworld. To summarize, only five out of 30 major studio releases earned in excess of $30 million, while Titanic accrued domestic receipts of $515.3 million, a full $54 million more than any title had ever earned before. It wasn't the biggest fish in a small pond. It was the only fish in the pond because it had eaten all the other fish.

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