sensui

Awesome list as always. I know you're busy but could you do the same list and add inflation to it? I'm waiting with baited breath for the inflation adjusted list on page 6 to be updated with this years titles plus the original Jungle Book and the other movies you wanted to include. Not to mention updating the WW list adjusted by inflation without China figures and adding a 10% of 3D for 2D films list as well. But thanks a lot Peludo and now Jason for adding actual analysis to the boxoffice forums and not just constant sports team bickering about my movie is better than yours, because of its gross, nonsense.

Peludo, it looks like the Force Awakens will finish as the second highest grossing film in the franchise and the second to eclipse 2 Billion. Amazing performance, especially considering how big the hype was for the past films (even excluding China which would not push those past films to 2 billion imo). Heck there is a possibility the Force Awakens could make 2 Billion without China

Not necessarily. Just last year, 2014, we had ONE billion dollar grosser, Transformers. This year we may have six, I've got a wait and see approach on Hunger Games, Spectre, and Good Dinosaur. Star Wars is a given and would make it 5 for the year, a new record. Yes, a lot of that is thanks to China but 5 films with a possible 6 making a billion doesn't delude the accomplishment in my mind when I factor in the sheer amount of films released in a given year. According to this 2009 article Hollywood produced over 600 films a year. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/oct/18/hollywood-films-numbers-fall Now they estimate it could fall to 400 in the future but I found articles in 2011 that had 500 films being produced, either way more or less now but assuming its the same, even if we get 6 billion dollar films that is literally 1% of all films released. And were just talking about domestic here not internationally. That to me is still special imo. Though I do agree that the billion dollar plateau will not possible mean what it used to like say when Titanic, LOTR, Pirates, etc... hit that mark. Basically after 2008's the Dark Knight there have been 17 films that have crossed the mark. Before that you had officially 4 films, (Titanic, LOTR, Pirates, & Batman). Harry Potter 1 got close and it took a re-release to get films like Star Wars the Phantom Menace and Jurassic Park over the limit Officially even though with inflation we know what the score is. And thanks to Peludo can see where a lot of films measure up. But I think that can be said about any milestone in film. We've had 3 600 million dollar plus grossers in the past 6 years. Avatar, Avengers, and now Jurassic World. When in the previous twenty years we had one with Titanic. If Star Wars or whatever here hits 600 million plus I wouldn't start demoting the 600 million dollar mark nor would I do the same for the 400 million dollar mark, or the 300 million dollar mark, etc... It's just the changing of time and all the other factors of modern cinema ticket price inflation I think the most important thing to do is put it in perspective, specifically historical context (for example with or without China or 3D), without really degrading the accomplishment of current blockbusters. At least that's how I see it.

Oh and one more thing, billion dollar grosses. With China you've got 35 films, without China 37 films. Even adding in classic old films, (Sound of Music, Ben Hur, etc...) and like we say various 3D bumps and expanding markets, there has probably not been more than 50-60 films in cinema history that have made a billion dollars. A billion dollars is still a special occurrence regardless of the times or trends but people always want to downplay a film grossing a billion, it had 3D its not as impressive as 2D (ignoring all the films in 3D that don't make a billion), or blame overseas audiences for their tastes ignoring the domestic lack of taste in many a blockbuster, especially if they don't like it, like say Minions or Pirates 3. This kind of list shows just how impressive it still is especially taking into account the last thirty years of modern box office.

Great list Peludo, thanks for all the effort and making the second list without China and the 10% bump. Um, I hate to bother you or nitpick, but where is Star Wars Attack of the Clones, Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Back to the Future's, & 2005 King Kong!!! But no seriously, thanks for all the hard work you've put in to make this approximation of global box office trends. Ignoring re-releases for some films (Lion King, Titanic, Star Wars, etc...), not that it would change things drastically or anything, looking at the data I'm shocked that with the exception of Avatar, Jurassic World, & the first Avengers, there is no film released in the last ten years that would break the all time top twenty (without China grosses). I unofficially predict Hollywood will be making half their films, superhero and sci-fi, in China over the next decade

Awesome list Peludo, thanks man for all the hard work. Trying to guess the 3D share for classic blockbuster films like Independence Day, Jurassic Park, and the Lord of the Rings, when they were groundbreaking endeavors is going to be nearly impossible. They could've pulled Avatar like runs in 3D or it may not have added more than %10 to their grosses. I think hypothetically you should do this exact same list, minus China for the current blockbusters, to make a more accurate comparison for older films. Or for the older films, I guess we can give all of them a base gross of 100 million in China, just to make it fair

Peludo, if you're still planning on doing that all time inflation/exchange rate global list http://forums.boxofficetheory.com/topic/18043-adjusting-exchange-rates/ you might want to wait until December and 2015 is over since the big blockbusters this year have performed at ridiculous all time levels. As a Jurassic Park fan I can't stop grinning seeing Jurassic World's performance. Who would have called all of this just 6 months ago with the exchange rates? Proof positive that if you make movies people really want to see, no amount of crappy exchange rates will prevent them from making mega boxoffice! I think this year is still going to have plenty of surprises before its done

Exactly, David Poland of Movie City News wrote a blog post just recently about this right here. http://moviecitynews.com/2015/04/weekend-estimates-by-ex-kladina/ I don't agree with everything David states (he doesn't believe in trying to use adjusted grosses for various reasons) but I do agree that China boxoffice going forward is a major game changer. I hesitate to put an asterisks on anything but when you consider China will be surpassing domestic boxoffice and become the number one market in the world and future films will literally be putting up 500 million grosses in an expanding market that is noteworthy and must be taken into account with all past film comparisons.

Overall imo they did well. We've seen worse drops between sequels, Matrix Reloaded to Matrix Revolutions, Star Wars The Phantom Menace to Attack of the Clones, Transformers 3 to 4, Pirates 3 to 4, heck the Hunger Games Catching Fire to Mocking Jay 1. Each of these films fell off domestically by over 100 million, except for the hunger games (technically 87 million). The Hobbit sequels were pretty consistently in domestic gross 250 and WW gross around 950. In fact the drop domestically was similar to Harry Potter 1-3. The first was the 300 million grosser, then a 50 million plus drop to Chamber and then another 10 million plus drop to Prisoner of Azkaban. I don't recall anyone writing a narrative of how terrible Potter's performance was or how much the series didn't connect with audiences or any other nonsense. I think you can't look at RT scores as a reason, Twilight and Transformers say hello, nor can you simply try and say it was all the backlash on the internet since that's only a small part of the audience even domestically. I think marketing is responsible for putting butts in sits even before reviews or word of mouth starts. The marketing, specifically the trailers simply did not engage major swaths of the American Public like the previous trailers of the LOTR did. Was it the tone? Was the Hobbit seen as uncool among the younger crowds unlike the super heroes dominating domestic cinemas? Heck the Hobbit, the word itself, is used negatively like a put down to describe people folks don't like. Look up the South Park parody clip of Kanye West calling Kim Kardashian a Hobbit. In the states being called a Hobbit is not a cool thing but an actual diss and it doesn't even have anything to do with being short. I think the zeitgeist of seeing Middle Earth for the first time (for the masses) had already passed and there was unfortunately (I don't agree) a been there done that feeling with the Hobbit marketing. Also maybe from a literary perspective, the Hobbit (which is my favorite book Tolkien wrote) is not as popular or critically acclaimed as LOTR. The LOTR has sold over 50-100 million (depends on where you look) more books than the Hobbit. It's not as popular as the LOTR which was published 17 years after the Hobbit was first printed. So only being 60% as popular as the LOTR theatrically was actually similar to their relationship in the literary world in terms of sales. Though the Hobbit is respected for being a great children's tale and is afforded that distinction from the LOTR because it came first. In the cinema world the Hobbit had to follow the LOTR (the mass public's first interaction with Middle Earth) and reducing the epicness of a world changing event to a lesser tale of gold and dragon slaying further gave the impression that the Hobbit was not as important or serious as the LOTR. I think they still performed well.

I'm sure you have your own schedule of when you're planning to do things but if possible could you wait until after the boxoffice runs of Fast and Furious 7 and Avengers 2 before you do the approximate inflation adjusted list. I think it would be great if we could wait until the record 2015 summer is over before getting an approximate list tallied. I look forward to whatever and whenever you can put a list together for us lazy bums who sit back and greatly appreciate your hard work Peludo. Real analysis is what boxoffice discussion is constantly missing in many a thread and its great Peludo that your actually doing exploration into world boxoffice numbers to see how popular certain films were during their theatrical releases. I just have three questions and forgive me if you have already addressed it. How do you plan to adjust for the 3D and IMAX rates? Especially for the films that didn't have a slight 3D bump in ticket prices? And will the extrapolated number be in today's exchange rates? Also, how far you want to go back (in terms of decades) is up to you and I know some posters want numbers from the Sound of Music days but I would be fascinated just by the numbers of the last 20-25 years. Like Jurassic Park in 93 to now. Jurassic Park was the movie that got me interested in following boxoffice numbers and I'm interested in seeing how it theoretically inflation adjusted stacks up to the big franchise boys playing now if possible. I'm curious what was the film that got you interested in boxoffice Peludo?

1st, let me say this is one AWESOME THREAD. Thanks for taking the time to compile all this data and share with us your findings. If you're going to adjust for inflation (down the line) I'm sure you already have the link to the http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/search/ website which has complied admission data for European countries. I haven't had any luck trying to track down a similar web site for the other regions of the world (South America, etc...). But if I find one I will definitely post a link to it here. Keep up the awe inspiring work Peludo, this is what Boxoffice theory was made for, actual boxoffice analysis. It's a rare thing on the forums now a days.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone wasn't almost on par with Deathly Hallows Part 2, it was FAR above it. According to Lumiere admission records The first Potter sold over 57 million tickets in Europe alone while the last potter was around 37 million. The KEY words Peludo said in his post are the following: That's why Titanic is below Avatar, when if he actually adjusted for inflation and 3D, then Titanic would literally crush Avatar (and I'm a fan of both). A great resource site to go to if you want to see admission numbers for films going back over 20 years is http://lumiere.obs.coe.int/web/search/ Just type the name of the film or film series and you can see their total admission numbers (European countries and US).

Full Break Down from Deadline http://deadline.com/2014/12/international-box-office-hobbit-battle-of-the-five-armies-debut-imax-record-exodus-results-1201324558/ "Numbers are rolling in on the international weekend with Peter Jackson’s final installment of the Hobbit franchise, The Battle Of The Five Armies, selling 14.57M tickets on more than 15,000 screens in 37 markets. The first weekend take was a big-footed $117.6M. IMAX plays were worth $6.4M on 160 screens. Those numbers bested the debut weekends of the previous two Hobbit movies, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (HUAJ) and The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (HDOS). The $6.4M start is an IMAX record for the best December opening, topping An Unexpected Journey‘s previous milestone of $5.03M. "Although the Five Armies bow is lower on a dollar basis than HDOS‘ $135.4M start last year, there are a few key things to note. HDOS debuted in 49 markets and on 16,405 screens versus Five Armies‘ 37 markets and 15K screens. Importantly, currency fluctuations play a major role (especially where the euro and the ruble are concerned). Looking only at local currency and admissions tallies, Five Armies is up 16% on HUAJ and 10% on HDOS at the same point. Several of the overseas territories on Five Armies also outperformed HDOS at open this frame."

It will come down to China and Japan if it makes a billion or doesn't. We can speculate till we're blue in the face on how its going to perform, until it opens. Could make less money this time around in both China and Japan. Could be the same as AUJ. Could be minimal increases in both. Or not. We have to wait until February to find out. Reminds me of last year with the will it or won't it talk which continued all the way up to its opening in China. So this will be the same thing again, except twice as bad Either way, it's a success and Warner Bros. is rolling in the money as AUJ nearly paid for the entire trilogy already.

Variety has it at $465 Million overseas http://variety.com/2014/film/news/frozen-hobbit-start-2014-at-top-of-u-s-box-office-1201021588/