'Titanic' continues its climb up the charts

Truth be told, the theater count matters when films go head-to-head for the weekend title. That was especially true for this weekend as "The Hunger Games" battled "Titanic 3D" and "American Reunion." On that note, "The Hunger Games" was in 4,137; "American Reunion" was in 3,192 and "Titanic" had 2,674. Now, the weekend winner was once again "The Hunger Games" with a Sunday estimate $32,839,000 while "American Reunion took in $21,500,000. "Titanic 3D" took in $17,350,000 for third. Then there is the fact that "Titanic" opened on Wednesday, so its total take so far in the re-release is estimated at $25,710,000. The actuals, as usual, will be announced Monday afternoon. It's not every week that these battles happen and when they do, it is noteworthy as the box office is about the business of show. And Hollywood is a business. Going in to the weekend, "Titanic" trailed "Avatar" as the top film of all time but roughly $161 million (domestically). Avatar sits at $760,507,625. With its current haul, "Titanic" now rises a bit to $626,498,188. In the worldwide take, it is "Avatar" $2.78 billion. Now "Titanic" is closing in on $2 billion with $1.9 billion at the box office. When it goes over $2 billion, only these two films have that honor and both films are from James Cameron. The estimates as noted from Box Office Mojo, are expected to be just that since this is a Holiday, and usually Easter is not one for the books because of other matters. On that matter of the theater count, let's look deeper. Since "Titanic" was in far fewer than the others, a second look at the box office take will take shape. Plus, with the film's length, the amount of times it can be screened in one day is limited.