lilmac

Santa Claus adjusts to $279million. Unbelievable and unexpected in retrospect. It's first six weekends adjust to this: $37 million $33 million $39.5 million $22 million $17.2 million $17.2 million

Agreed. Better than First Class but not better than X2 and

That's a good one. How did Snakes on a Plane make over $30million?!

I'm sorry but St. Vincent was overrated.

....only to find that Smaug had already....

I like that gingerbread man. He was funny. I forget how good Shrek 2 was.... The 2:30 mark was cinematic gold

Maybe the last two movies made me forget the impact of the first two because when people here thought Shrek was more influential - I was like whuuuut. Maybe they're right...

Good point but the point of this thread is for movies that have had surprising box-office runs when you look back in time. Boxoffice runs you forgot (or like to forget). For example: When I think of National Treasure 2, I don't think of a franchise with a movie that made $220m.

Technically wouldn't it be Cars since they've sold the most merchandise?

Little Mac's List of Most "Beloved" Films Since Lion King 1. Finding Nemo 2. Wall-E 3. Frozen 4. Toy Story 3 5. Toy Story 1 6. Shrek 7. Shrek 2 8. Incredibles 9. Toy Story 2 10. Tangled

^This

Good post. Can you go further in describing how Shrek "changed the game"? I think you are on to something..

As did Lone Survivor (at least for me), this time last year.

I don't think Shrek 2 has had more of a cultural impact. Toy Story and Lion King, yes.

I agree. Not even close.

Can I fast-forward to the future and say American Sniper?

Only September and October have #1 OW's under $80m now.

I think Episode VII has the potential to have an Avatar like performance although it may not get nearly as high (small declines but high grosses through the first few weekends, then the usual drops) with fans watching it multiple times. Of course the movie has to be good.

Good list. E.T.'s run was unbelievable and is 2nd to Titanic in my book. It had more #1 weekends than Titanic and made the equivalent of $1 billion domestic. Fun fact: E.T. was #1 in its 26th weekend! Umm....whut?

I don't recall the lag times but I did know that it wasn't a super-long "I want to kill myself" window and there weren't 3 month windows to compare to. I will concede that maybe the proliferation of alternative viewing nowadays does have more of an effect than in 1997 but Titanic was different. Screw VHS, you had to see it in theaters. It was epic. What was strange and you can see this in the weekend grosses, is that WOM spread AFTER that first Friday. You didn't get Lost World OW numbers in that first weekend. No, WOM played a big role. You HAD to see it. Only Avatar has matched the epicness since. Plus, there was the Leo effect. You had teenage girls going to see the film multiple times. There was a big deal made about that. hehe. It was a four quadrant (old/young, male/female) must-see movie. "Thinking back at how much hype there was over the film...."

Umm, not quite. Yes, there are more stay-at-home options nowadays, however, the market during Titanic and the obstacles for very leggy runs are much the same as they are now. As someone who tracked boxoffices during those days, Titanic's run was absolutely astounding. Why? Because Home video saturated the market and DVDs were beginning to make inroads. If you're talking Raiders of the Lost Ark or ET, sure we can understand but in December 1997, VHS was not just starting back then. It was everywhere. Replace "I'll wait for it to hit Netflix/DVD/Blu-Ray" with "I'll wait for it to hit VHS" and you get the same impact on attendance. The only difference are illegal downloads. TLDR: Titanic was not THAT long ago.

It recovered nicely though. Likely profitable.

One could make the argument that Avatar was an animated film.

Toy Story 4