And ‘Titanic’ returns. After literally more than a decade without James Cameron appearing in the headlines other than to support somewhat reluctantly the production of some sequel pulling loosely from ‘Terminator’, we have him every day on paper thanks to the monstrous and extremely fast collection of ‘Avatar: The Sense of Water’. And we have for a while, because its maritime success and prior to the first ‘Avatar’ It turns 25, and on February 10 it returns to theaters in a remastered version.
The film that appears as the third highest grossing in history, is also one of the most awarded of all time, with 11 Oscars to its credit (including Best Picture). The film will be re-released in a limited way only in 4K and 3D HFR, although the question remains as to whether it will really arrive in Spain in those juicy 4K, since Disney omits that information from its communication.
A meticulous strategy
The point is that for Disney (and Cameron) this re-release of ‘Titanic’ is more than just a celebration of the film’s 25th anniversary. The House of Mouse is continually looking for ways to get the most out of its vast catalog of blockbusters (as if the trunk of incunabula from Disney and its many subsidiaries weren’t enough, the progressive purchases of Fox, Lucasfilm and Marvel have been fattening the possibilities) .
And if a few years ago he took advantage of the live-action remakes of his animated classics (remember 2019: ‘The Lion King’, ‘Aladdin’, the sequel to ‘Maleficent’ and ‘Dumbo’ among the highest grossing films of the year) , for some time now he has also taken a liking to reruns, combined with staggered releases in different parts of the planet. In this way, it generated an artificial competition (because the income always falls into the same coffers) between the first Avatar and Endgame, which persecuted each other, one with a rerun, the other opening in China, until in the end the Cameron was crowned number 1 of all time.
And now it’s the turn of ‘Titanic’. For starters, Disney has repeated the same technique as with ‘Avatar’ and has withdrawn it from Disney+ to increase anticipation. The premiere is mathematically calculated to function as a transmission belt when the echo of the collections of ‘Avatar 2’ begins to fade. If all goes as in Disney’s most financially wet dreams, “Titanic” may even help give the adventures on Pandora a new lease on life, in a blockbuster ouroboros.
There are voices that claim that the cinema has become a continuous recycling business: all the great successes are franchises, sequels, remakes, reboots. To all this we can add another prefix “re-“: re-releases. Undoubtedly the most profitable exercises in the pack: the movie is already made, you just have to wait for people to pay several times to see it. T-chink!!
