Statshot.A look at the numbers that... wait this is actually real.Top 9 inflation-adjusted domestic box office movies' ticket sales as percentage of US population at year of release.
Data courtesy US Census Bureau and Box Office Mojo.
What this chart represents is, basically, how many tickets a movie sold in the US divided by the US Population in the movie's initial release year. It's supposed to be a rough estimate of the percentage of the US population that went to see the film and gives an idea of the saturation of the movie in popular culture. The nine movies are the top nine movies on the inflation-adjusted domestic all-time box office gross list.
The reason it only goes to nine is the tenth movie on the list (
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves) was originally released in 1937, and the midyear population data only goes back to 1950. For
Gone with the Wind (1939) I used data from the 1940 US Census, so it is slightly inaccurate.
Also adding to the inaccuracies is that many of these movies were re-released in subsequent years. For instance, $128 million of
Star Wars' $460 million were made in the 1997 Special Edition re-release, when the population was higher than the 1977 population.
But it gives you a rough idea of how ubiquitous certain movies are in the culture or past cultures.
The idea for this Statshot was given to me while browsing the list of top 100 domestic grosses adjusted for inflation. The movies on that list are really the most popular movies of all time, since it takes into account that tickets cost more today then they did in years past. Looking through this list, a number of other interesting things come into light. Here are a few of them:
Number of movies on the list starring Harrison Ford: 7
Number of movies on the list featuring music composed by John Williams: 17
Number of movies on the list directed by Steven Spielberg: 8
Number of movies on the list written by George Lucas: 10
Number of sequels on the list: 17
Number of Disney Animated Features on the list: 12
Number of movies on the list I've seen in their entirety: 62
Other interesting notes:
When Warner Brothers Pictures adapted
My Fair Lady for the movies, they passed over Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle in the stage version, in favor of Audrey Hepburn. This is partially because Warner Brothers was investing a lot in the movie and didn't want to take a risk with the relatively inexperienced Julie Andrews, who had yet to star in a movie. However, this left Julie Andrews available to star in Disney's production of
Mary Poppins. It's interesting to note that
Mary Poppins sits at #23 on the list where
My Fair Lady is #52. Note, however, that like most Disney movies on the list,
Mary Poppins made most of its money on re-releases, having only made $31 million of its total $102 million on the initial release.
Gone with the Wind: This has got to be the most phenomenally successful movie of all time. In its initial release, it made $189 million dollars. $189 million
1939 dollars. That's over $1.329 billion 2007 dollars. No other movie made that much money for 34 years, not until the release of
The Exorcist in 1973 with $193 million. But by then,
Gone with the Wind had made an additional $9 million on re-releases, keeping on top of the box office list. The movie that finally bumped GWTW off the top spot was Steven Spielberg's
Jaws in 1975 with $260 million. That only held onto the top spot for two years, when
Star Wars burst onto the scene, raking in $307 million in its initial release.
Star Wars held onto that spot for 16 years until
Jurassic Park came along with $357 million.
Jurassic's reign was short-lived because in 1997, the Special Edition re-release of
Star Wars pushed
it up to $460 million. But even that paled in comparison to the $600 million
Titanic made the same year. Titanic still sits atop the box office, far ahead of even
Star Wars in second place.
Titanic is the only movie to have made more than $500 and $600 million dollars, and was the first movie to gross more than $1 billion worldwide, with a total worldwide gross of $1.8 billion. No other movie grossed more than $1 billion until
Return of the King came along in 2003 with $1.1 billion worldwide. The billion dollar gross club also recently got its third member with
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest at $1.065 billion.
Titanic is a success story similar to
Gone with the Wind. Whereas most major blockbusters experience their largest gross on their first weekend, followed by a 30%-50% drop off on second and subsequent weekends,
Titanic actually experienced a 35%
gain on its second weekend, and didn't begin to significantly drop off until its 10th weekend. This is primarily why it sits on top of the box office chart and why no other movie is likely to touch it soon. Very few movies follow that same pattern. The only other one that immediately comes to mind is
My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which had a very long, steady 52-week run, not permanently falling off until its 41st weekend. But since it never had a #1 weekend, it "only" made $241 million and is #45 on the all time domestic chart.
