I've always wondered, even after adjusting for inflation wouldn't it make sense to adjust for population as well?
In 1939 the population of the US was only 130millon, and a large portion was rural, which meant they had poorer access to theaters. This makes the returns of Gone with the Wind that much more impressive (although of course TVs/misc. entertainment devices didn't exist, which compete against movies.)
Perhaps a good way to measure the success a of a movie would be the percentage of the population that has seen it.
But for a "fair" comparison you would also have to adjust based on the cost of attending a movie compared to average income (it's increased disproportionally, even over the past 20 years), and take into account the other forms of entertainment that are available today compared to back then. Heck, forget video games, Cable BluRay, DVDs - even the choice of movies available today is likely to be far larger than back in 1939 :)
> (although of course TVs/misc. entertainment devices didn't exist, which compete against movies.)
Actually I think this is the most relevant point. People used to go to the cinema a lot more before TV. Also movies didn't 'go to DVD' so I'm guessing that the most popular ones could run for years and years.
This doesn't account for the fact that Avatar on 3D IMAX costs more than an average movie. They're using $7.35 as the ticket price, not the $17 I've seen as the actual price. From the article: "Inflation-adjustment is mostly done by multiplying estimated admissions by the latest average ticket price."
How many 3D IMAXes are out there, though? My bet is that a majority of viewers are watching it in 2D in the U.S. alone. This list doesn't account for international sales, which probably attributes for a smaller overall percentage of 3D ticket sales.
That's because they have to reduce the price of any ticket sales beyond 1939. Note that the year has a carat next to it, indicating "documented multiple theatrical releases. Most of the pre-1980 movies listed on this chart had multiple undocumentented releases over the years. The year shown is the first year of release."
However, inflation-adjustment is harder for the worldwide figure since inflation varies by country and you'd need to know the individual grosses for each one.
[Edit: actually, is that true if the figures are in USD?]
Depends on how the conversion is done. If they take the numbers in all countries in a particular year, convert them to USD at the rate applicable in that year, inflation adjust that number, then add them together, the result you get is roughly good for inflation adjusted worldwide gross. Other methods may be less valid.
Taking the top movies in adjusted domestic gross, dividing by their non-adjusted domestic gross, and then multiplying that ratio by their worldwide gross, you get:
1. Gone with the Wind - $3.04 billion
2. Titanic - $2.34 billion
3. A New Hope - $2.24 billion
4. E.T. - $1.93 billion
5. The Sound of Music - $1.92 billion
6. Jaws - $1.73 billion
As of this post, Avatar is 2.05 billion and climbing. Will it be the most watched movie of all time worldwide (in theaters), or will Gone with the Wind retain its dominance? *Data taken from boxofficemojo.com.
Keep in mind this list is only for domestic. While many films on this list came out before international distribution, Avatar has been particularly successful internationally.
These sorts of comparisons are kind of silly, because there is no way to adequately put all these movies on equal ground (the movie market is radically different today than it was in the 1930s). Even if one could, what exactly are they trying to show? Relative popularity? There are better measures that do not include grosses.
The biggest issue though with comparing a movie that came out a month ago with a movie that came out 80 years ago is that movie has had 80 years of releases and re-releases in which to make that sum. It would be much more fair to compare everything to how it did in the first month of availability (though even then you have problems with judging how widely distributed a movie was initially). Also, the site doesn't make clear if, when taking into account re-releases, they adjust everything at the price level of the original release or if they judge each re-release at the new price level.
In the end, though, any sort of historical comparison is a silly exercise that tells us little.
The site makes it very clear, actually, that they adjust ticket sales in each year independently, based on the year that the tickets were sold. http://boxofficemojo.com/about/adjuster.htm goes into all of the details.
That being said, I don't know how much their calculations should be trusted, as they claim to use $7.35 as the ticket price for 2009 as well as 2010, but show Avatar's 562MM as adjusted up from 555MM starting in 2009 dollars.
Thank you. I've been trying to convince people that inflation really makes the current ranking quite useless; plus that Titanic was released at a time when people didn't go to the cinema as much as today.
But of course, many people won't believe something just because it's not in print.
"plus that Titanic was released at a time when people didn't go to the cinema as much as today."
My guess is that the opposite is true. Large LCD and plasma screens with 5.1 Surround Sound and DVD/Bluray make cinema less attractive than what it was 12 years ago.
This is a personal pet peeve of mine because I have simply never understood the point of comparing movie profits not adjusted for inflation. 1 billion in profit is not 1 billion in profit, that's the whole point. People seem to occasionally mention adjusting for inflation like its some obscure comparison, but in reality these numbers are otherwise just 100% meaningless. Its like saying "This movie made more rupees than that movie made dollars!" OK, but who knows what that means if you don't know the relative values?
If tomorrow we had hyper-inflation and a bus ticket cost 1 million dollars, would anyone still be impressed by a billion dollars in profit? Would the mediocre comedies netting trillions at the box office be given the title of "most profitable movie" of all time?
A dollar in 1977 had the buying power of somewhere between 3 to 4 dollars now. $1/3 billion profit in 1977 dollars is a significantly smaller number.
the film studios only see part of (I've heard ~50%) gross box office when taking theater operator's share out (+ cost to manufacture and distribute film reels, etc). Plus Avatar cost >300 million to produce + >100 million marketing + James Cameron's share, etc. Film studios make most of the profit from accounting/tax tricks, dvd revenue, tv deals, etc.
It's a sliding scale of box office gross that goes to the studios. Believe it or not, each film has its own deal, and there isn't really a standard amount. Bigger films can negotiate more for the distributor (studio) and less for the exhibitor (theater). The typical pattern is that the first weekend or two is very heavily slanted towards the distributor (as much as a 85/15 split, though 70/30 is more normal). Then the distributor's share goes down each weekend.
The rule of thumb is that over the course of a typical film, the distributor will receive about 55% of box office gross. Foreign deals can differ a fair amount.
Each deal is different, and it's hard to say what any one film gets without some insider info.
Then there's the cost of the film. There's not been a firm number on Avatar's production costs. High 200s is a good guess, but it's a guess.
P&A (prints and advertising) can be a huge cost on something like Avatar, though it had fewer prints than a typical blockbuster. Advertising was certainly substantial, though. I suspect 100 million is actually low.
Cameron's share is likely defined to come after some sort of breakeven point, some minimum number the studio beancounters said had to come back to the studio. There's really no standard whatsoever for someone like Cameron though, so who knows.
It's also important to remember that a lot of a film's production cost is really just the studio paying itself. Soundstage rental. Grip trucks, costuming, blah blah blah. Money moving from one column to another.
Avatar probably didn't qualify for any tax credits, though some films get really amazing deals. Some come close to having half their budgets in transferable tax credits, depending on the state or locale they shoot in. Those tax credits can be sold for cash and can considerably lower the cost to a studio.
The traditional hope for an average film has been to break even on box office, profit on the ancillaries - dvd, tv, etc. But with DVD sales dropping, that model will need some adjustment.
Avatar, though, is probably pretty close to some definition of profit in theatrical release.
And all that billion plus dollars is cash flow. Which is king, as much in Hollywood as it is anywhere else.
In 1939 the population of the US was only 130millon, and a large portion was rural, which meant they had poorer access to theaters. This makes the returns of Gone with the Wind that much more impressive (although of course TVs/misc. entertainment devices didn't exist, which compete against movies.)
Perhaps a good way to measure the success a of a movie would be the percentage of the population that has seen it.