Director James Cameron‘s mega hit Titanic was released 15 years ago now, but it’s not done being a box office force.

The movie—which would go on to win Best Picture and hold the all-time domestic box office record at $600 million for a long, long time…until Cameron’s Avatar came along, of course—was recently re-released in 3D, and is dumping plenty more coin into the pockets of those who made it.

Since being re-released, the movie has already piled on another $200 million—which is how much it cost to make way back when—to its already massive numbers, pushing it past the $2 billion mark worldwide. Perhaps even more impressive, Titanic is now officially the biggest all-time box office opening in China’s history.

The tenth episode of The Geeks Of Doom Round Up is here, and Greg reviews the trailer for Looper, directed by Rian Johnson, and starring Bruce Willis, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. For our music selection this week, Andy marks the milestone of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, with some of the music used in the James Cameron film by Gaelic Storm, with their Titanic Set.

Later, we also take a look at Timothy Zahn‘s next upcoming Star Wars novel, which is essentially a crime/heist tale set in the backdrop of the SW galaxy. The book is called Star Wars: Scoundrels and is set to be released towards the end of the year.

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Titanic
3D presentation
Directed by James Cameron
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane
Rated PG-13
Release Date (3D Version): April 4, 2012

I’ve now officially contributed twice to the highest grossing motion picture in history.

I had the opportunity to go out to the movies the other night, and I had a lot of choices, including a remake of 21 Jump Street I’d heard was quite funny, and a reunion sequel to American Pie, but my decision in the end was determined by a film whose experience I couldn’t replicate at home: James Cameron‘s 3D post-conversion of Titanic (1997).

The last time I saw Titanic was in the theaters fifteen years ago. It’s not that I hadn’t enjoyed it; I had always meant to see it again. I’d even picked up a DVD at one point (okay, so I contributed thrice), but I’d never unwrapped it. My recollection of it was that it was technically brilliant, but flawed in many ways. I just never felt that compelled to revisit it. Cameron’s year-long, $18 million 3D conversion gave me a good excuse to do just that.

The 3D-converted re-release of James Cameron‘s 1997 Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic didn’t exactly set the box office afire this weekend as it had did back in its day, forcibly ensconced in the number three spot behind The Hunger Games and American Reunion. But considering that the movie had already grossed over $1 billion worldwide in theaters and millions more on video and DVD and that 3D re-releases aren’t usually huge ticket sellers unless it’s a really slow weekend (and the summer movie season is currently in our cross hairs), this could hardly be considered a major loss for Cameron and the studio. In any case the director still has his deep sea scientific expeditions and the Avatar franchise, which should resume sometime before the bicentennial of the sinking of the Titanic, to consume his livelihood for the rest of time.

This news is so very incomprehensible, you might just find yourself staring at the numbers for an hour or two before snapping out a shock-induced coma.

It’s no secret that Avatar was the biggest movie that this or any other world has ever seen (maybe…I hear Omicron Persei 8 is remaking Bikini Party Summer). With a budget somewhere in the $250 million to $300 million budget, the risk was unheard of and failure would have been of cataclysmic proportions. But we should all know by now that James Cameron knows best, and he’s about to have a very good day because of it.