[jdlegg]

Show business, being primarily driven by the profit motive, tends to focus on ideas to which an audience can relate and enjoy. The story of the RMS Titanic, being one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history, is generally antagonistic toward these ends because most (not all) people don't like thinking about the possibility of dying on an ocean-liner and do not enjoy watching it happen to others.

It should be clear how these two are in opposition. For this reason alone, conventional thinking would call a movie about the Titanic a "bad idea."

The movie worked, though, and made a billion dollars because the director executed it in such a way that it actually wasn't about a sinking ship and people drowning, it was about something else. And this other thing (call it the human spirit or what-have-you), overcomes the tragedy of the situation to make it something the movie-going audience could relate to and enjoy.

From a more technical perspective, the Titanic story could be considered a "bad idea" because, on the surface, the plot should hold no surprises to anyone: boat sets sail, boat hits iceberg, boat sinks, passengers are drowned.

The remarkable thing about the Titanic film is that EVERYONE knows how it's going to end, even before they sit down to watch it. This, according to conventional wisdom, would be a bad idea as far as show business is concerned. Who wants to see a movie like that? Yet audiences returned to theaters multiple times. It is a credit to Cameron's direction that the film could overcome such a large, inherent obstacle in the Titanic storyline.

[mynameishere]

The "conventional thinking" already produced numerous successful titanic movies, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. They were successful without Cameron's various flourishes, but that's aside the point anyway.

EVERYONE knows how it's going to end,

Just as with every movie based on any war, any book, any real-life story, any standard hero/villain setup, etc. In ancient Greek drama, almost every play was based on well-known stories. So, the audience knowing "how it's going to end" has been conventional for several thousand years, at least.

one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history,

Replace "disaster" with the word "tragedy" and I think you can see how the titanic, again, fits in perfectly with conventional, time-tested, subject matter for dramatization. Maybe I'm missing your point, but many, many, many movies are based on bad things happening to people. The worse, the better, in fact.

Cameron's warping it into a chick flick has nothing to do with Adam's assertion. It's not a question of 1000 million vs. 100 million in revenues.