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Rose Dawson V. Scarlett O’Hara

Should Inflation be a Factor in Determining Top Box Office Draws?

The biggest movie of the summer is The Dark Knight, no doubt about it. There’s no realistic chance for any other film to unseat the new Batman flick from being the box office champ. In fact, after its first 17 days, The Dark Knight was already the #8 film of all time in terms of box office draw. It is predicted to earn more than $500 Million and end up just behind Titanic as the highest grossing film of all time.

So, this got me thinking about some of the other films on the list, and how inflation has impacted them. Kirk and I were talking about how “unfair” it was that great films from yesteryear are eclipsed on the list not necessarily because of inferiority, but because of inflation.

Here are the top 15 highest-grossing films of all time.

  1. Titanic
  2. Star Wars
  3. Shrek 2
  4. E.T.
  5. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
  6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
  7. Spider-Man
  8. The Dark Knight
  9. Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
  10. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
  11. Spider-Man 2
  12. The Passion of the Christ
  13. Jurassic Park
  14. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
  15. Finding Nemo

…and here is the top 15 list of highest grossing films of all time adjusted for inflation. Pretty different.

  1. Gone With the Wind
  2. Star Wars
  3. The Sound of Music
  4. E.T.
  5. The Ten Commandments
  6. Titanic
  7. Jaws
  8. Doctor Zhivago
  9. The Jungle Book (1967)
  10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
  11. Ben-Hur
  12. 101 Dalmations (1961)
  13. The Exorcist
  14. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
  15. Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi

What do you think? Is it fair and proper to compare a movie with .25 cent ticket prices to a modern era film at $10 a ticket? Which list do you think best represents the greatness of American cinema and the people’s voice regarding the greatest movies of all time? Or, does box office draw mean nothing in terms of how the movie will be remembered to future generations?



This entry was posted on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Yada Yada, Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Rose Dawson V. Scarlett O’Hara”

  1. Added by Stu the (not so) Wise on:
    August 8th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    I’m for reporting the number of individual ticket sales. That makes the most sense to me. But saying that a movie made 10 batrillion dollars sounds so much cooler!

  2. Added by Micah on:
    August 8th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    Normalizing for inflation totally makes sense when you’re comparing how much money a movie made. However, it isn’t necessarily a good indication of how great a movie is. Of course, in that case you would also have to take into consideration total video/laserdisc/dvd rentals and purchases as well as some type of exit poll on the enjoyment of the movie in order to fully see how great a movie actually is. I don’t think the total grossing list is a measure of how great a movie is; instead it’s a measure on how much money the movie made. In that case, normalizing for inflation is definitely needed.

  3. Added by TheBakersRock on:
    August 10th, 2008 at 4:52 pm

    Whatever Micah said, I think I agree…

  4. Added by bear hunter on:
    August 10th, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    micah….blah, blah, blah.

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