The Dark Knight will pass up Titanic on the all-time grossing list

The all-time grossing lists are all based on world wide gross. I daresay arguing about domestic gross is shifting the goal posts. I'll consider that a concession on the world wide gross list, and still consider that to be the main point of the debate. And go ahead and point out that Titanic isn't going to be outstripped domestically either. http://en.wikipedia.org... Checking your source you should also note that comparisons between the straight dollar amounts without taking inflation into context gives completely silly numbers. Unless we're going to suggest that the 40 Year Old Virgin did better than every Shirley Temple movie combined we need to account for the worth of a dollar. Notice that Titanic in the list on the link you gave adjusted for inflation 1997 Titanic $886,359,440. Dark Knight is a bit less than half of that. I fully concede that Dark Knight made massive amounts of money it's opening weekend. It beat Spider Man 3. How did Spider Man 3 fair against Titanic? Oh, down at the bottom of the list. To figure out how well the Dark Knight should do domestically we need to look at the trends rather than the opening day figures. http://www.the-numbers.com... 7/18/2008 $158,411,483 $158,411,483 7/25/2008 $75,166,466 $313,781,677 -52.55% 8/1/2008 $42,664,219 $393,751,065 -43.24% 8/8/2008 $26,117,030 $441,628,497 -38.78% It opened 158 million, then lost about half that for the second weekend and a bit under half that for the third. If we figure a 40% loss per week which if you check the numbers for other blockbuster pictures like Spider Man 3 seems to trend like that (though Dark Knight opened bigger). http://www.the-numbers.com... Figuring in the weeks gross we have 158 million for the first weekend(3 day rather than a week), and 155 million by (and including) the next weekend, and 80 for the next, 48 for the next week. Lets figure only a 40% loss each week. 1 week: 28 million. 2 week: 17 million. 3 week: 10 million. 4 week: 6 million. 5 week: 3.7 million. 6 week: 2 million. etc: ~ 4 million (converging series/guess). This means Dark Knight probably has 70 million dollars left to make. This puts the domestic gross at ~511 million. Titanic gross is 600 million, and 886 million when you account (properly) for inflation. http://www.the-numbers.com... The weekend trends on Titanic aren't simply down by 40 every week, they go down ten then up 200 then down 20 and up 10. It stayed on the charts for a long long time. You can't just say see Titanic's opening weekend was a lot like the fourth week of Dark Knight therefore Dark Knight has another 600 million in it. Titanic appealed to a different kind of audience. "That a movie can open well, and people will stop seeing it after the first week.(Spiderman 3 is a great example of this) HOWEVER, The Dark Knight is an exception. It has been number 1 in the box office for FOUR WEEKS." --ZOMG FOUR WEEKS! Is that like the 15 weeks Titanic was #1 or the four weeks Return of the King was #1? Also look at the midweek values. For daily totals Dark Knight dropped down to as low as 3rd last Wednesday and regularly is second for the mid week days. ---- Dark Knight isn't going to make 1.1 billion dollars world wide to offset the all-time grossing list. Dark Knight isn't going to make the 445 million domestically to overtake Titanic's inflation adjusted gross. Dark Knight isn't even going to make the 159 million to overtake Titanic's non-adjusted gross. It'll probably make about 70 million dollars more in the coming weeks. Probably overtaking Star Wars: A New Hope position as #2. Regardless how skewed we try to make the metric is towards your position, you still lose. Awesome flick though.