‘Titanic’ Putting Up Gigantic Numbers

Last Sunday, a good 30 minutes before the first matinee showing of “Titanic,” the line to buy tickets snaked out the door at the Spokane Valley Mall Cinemas.

By the time I got to the front of the line, I was told the noon show was nearly sold out, that the only seats left were in the front two rows.

What? This is a movie that has been in theaters for more than six weeks and people are still lining up to see it.

“It’s an amazing movie,” said Chuck Caraway, the Spokane-based district manager for ACT III theaters, echoing what many Hollywood pundits have been saying. “In the 15 years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen a movie take off and excel to this degree, gaining speed from week to week. And when the Oscar nominations come out (on Tuesday), it will probably get a bounce from that.”

There’s no doubt “Titanic” is a juggernaut, pulling in more than $600 million worldwide so far. The Feb. 6 issue of Entertainment Weekly makes the no-brainer prediction that the James Cameron-directed movie will be the first ever to earn $1 billion in worldwide sales. (Not to mention the film’s soundtrack topping the pop charts and the behind-the-scenes book hitting No. 1 on The New York Times paperback best-seller list.)

Audiences in this area certainly can’t get enough.

Caraway described last weekend as “a madhouse.”

Before the movie started on Sunday, a theater employee fielded questions about the flick from the capacity crowd. The atmosphere was more like a party than an afternoon matinee.

He asked viewers how many had already seen “Titanic.” Nearly half the audience raised a hand.

Caraway said it’s not unusual for an action-adventure movie to bring in repeat business.

“We saw it with ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Indiana Jones,’ but to have a love story that people go back to again and again, I can’t really explain it,” said Caraway.

Nor can he account for the diverse crowd this movie is drawing.

“We’ve noticed an extremely wide range of ages, everyone from 8 or 9 years old all the way up to senior citizens,” Caraway said. “I have never seen anything like it.”

In Entertainment Weekly, director Cameron interpreted the unprecedented interest this way: “This movie messes you up emotionally and audiences like to get their emotions messed up at the movies. It’s the only business in the world where people thank you for making them cry.”

I had a strictly personal reason for going back for a second helping of “Titanic.” I wanted to see my sister’s name in the credits.

The first time I saw it - at a private screening for cast and crew members in L.A. at which Cameron himself introduced the film - my sister and I were too swept away by the magical movie experience to spot her name among the hundreds of other people who helped get this movie made. (She worked in the hair department, and I visited her on the set last year in Mexico for a story that ran in this section.)

She was bummed, thinking that she didn’t get a credit.

Later, people told her they saw her name - Laurel Kelly - listed under “Additional Hair.”

So, this time, after I had dried my tears spilled over that wonderfully uplifting closing scene, I sat for five more minutes waiting, wading through the lengthy credits.

Yes, there it was. On the left-hand side of the screen, my sissy’s name up there on what might be the most successful movie ever made.

I got choked up all over again.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Graphic: Top-grossing movies in the U.S.