this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
221 points (92.0% liked)

Movies and TV Shows

3 readers
2 users here now

General discussion about movies and TV shows.


Spoilers are strictly forbidden in post titles.

Posts soliciting spoilers (endings, plot elements, twists, etc.) should contain [spoilers] in their title. Comments in these posts do not need to be hidden in spoiler MarkDown if they pertain to the title's subject matter.

Otherwise, spoilers but must be contained in MarkDown as follows:

::: your spoiler warning
the crazy movie ending that no one saw coming!
:::

Your mods are here to help if you need any clarification!


Subcommunities: The Bear (FX) - [[email protected]](/c/thebear @lemmy.film)


Related communities: [email protected] [email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Greta Gerwig's movie will race pass the $200 million mark at the domestic box office Tuesday, while Christopher Nolan's 'Oppenheimer' will clear $100 million.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Even that is misleading if the population is growing. Really it should be ticket sales per capita if we truly want to figure out the most popular movie of all time.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

By these rules, Gone with the Wind likely wins.

But it's still not a good comparison because of other factors. First off, movie theaters didn't used to compete with television, cable, video games, DVDs, streaming, or social media for your free time. The industry was also a lot smaller, meaning there were fewer high profile movies dividing up that whole pie. The lack of practical home video also meant popular films like Gone with the Wind would get frequently re-issued and continue racking up ticket sales.

It is essentially impossible to accurately compare the popularity of any two movies separated by more than a decade or two.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Gone with the wind has such a huge lead when adjusting for inflation it's insane, 390 million dollars when movie tickets were 25 cents. That's over 1.5 billion tickets. It's also 8 billion dollars in today's money.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

This is my new favorite movie stat.