What boxoffice runs are unbelievable in retrospect?

[ShouldIBeHere]

Home Alone had a spectacular run, hadn't it? Another one of those that won't happen again due to early availability of DVDs and stuff.

[grim22]

Seeing Moana's current run gives me almost fresh perspective on just how big an animated beast Frozen was. Moana started about on par with Frozen and will end 150M or more behind it.

[Lordmandeep]

The thing about Frozen was that it was a fraction of its impact in overall society.

 

90% of the people I know you saw the film saw it on Home Video or Streaming. 

[John Marston]

in the 80s and 90s adult targeted movies routinely made 200-300m adjusted type numbers. 

Edited December 25, 2016 by John Marston

[John Marston]

Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame adjust to like 180 each. That would actually be considered horrible today for a Disney animation 

[cannastop]

15 minutes ago, John Marston said:

Hercules and The Hunchback of Notre Dame adjust to like 180 each. That would actually be considered horrible today for a Disney animation 

180 is acceptable, though.

 

Good thing ticket prices are now in line with budgets.

[John Marston]

I think Pochohantas was also the Moana of the time where people expected much bigger numbers solely due to the success of previous Disney films 

[John Marston]

while not "unbelievable"  but I always assumed the 2008 movies like Jumper and The Day the Earth Stood Still remake were flops but they actually made decent money. Jumper made 222m on an 85m budget (enough to make a sequel if they wanted to)  and TDTESS made 233m worldwide on an 80m budget. 

 

[dudalb]

To go back quite a few years, "The Sound Of Music" had an incredible run. It played in many cities for nearly two  years in it's roadshow engagements,at a time when the average Roadshow run was about six months.

[baumer]

I think you'll be able to add Jumanji to this list.

[TomCruiseTop]

29 minutes ago, baumer said:

I think you'll be able to add Jumanji to this list.

For certain, it's such a fun movie too, well deserved. 

[Kalo]

Yeah Jumanji definitely deserves a mention, considering it's looking at a domestic BO north of $300m. was a loose sequel (reboot?) to a 90s movie that most people only vaguely remember. and it has already out-grossed it with inflation, not to mention it was a really fun decent movie.

 

Speaking of which @baumer are you ever going to finish that Box office through the years write up? 2017. was incredible for massive breakouts like Jumanji, Wonder Woman and It. 

Edited January 13, 2018 by Kalo

[Kramerica1975]

Passion of The Christ had an amazing run.

An independent movie becoming the top R-rated grosser, what a story.

Gibson made the right decision to spend his money to finance the movie.

A fanstatic box office run, plus massive DVD sales.

[MovieMan89]

Greatest Showman should join this list. It's basically having the kind of box office run you saw for the big hits of the 80's (8-12m OW/15-20x multi) in 2017-2018. For example, if it does something like 8.8/160 its run won't look much different unadjusted than the likes of Top Gun, Three Men and a Baby, and Rain Man, which won '86, '87, and '88 respectively. 

Edited January 12, 2018 by MovieMan89

[DAJK]

I'd still say American Sniper even 3 years later. 

 

Sure, TFA, JW, Deadpool, It, Jumanji were all incredible runs. But they all had unique and solid reasonings behind them (TFA 40 years of nostalgia and 10 years of built-in hype), Jurassic World 90's nostalgia a movie that came out long enough ago that's fans have kids of their own, Deadpool was a unique take on the CBM genre that came out at the right time since it began to parody genre tropes. It had one of the best marketing campaigns in recent memory, and Jumanji had arguably the world's biggest movie star teamed with a movie that has nostalgia of its own, was the only counterprogramming family option for the Xmas season (Ferdinand didn't do well enough to count) and it had insane WOM.

 

American Sniper though. Yea, it was a good movie that got a bunch of Oscar nominations and played to the patriotic nature of many people. But movies like that come out all the time. Lone Survivor had the same patriotic feel, similar reviews, yet only did 1/3 of AS's business. AS got a lot of oscar attention, but not nearly as many noms as a movie like La La Land or American Hustle, which still their DOM totals added together don't equal American Sniper.

[Jonwo]

21 minutes ago, DAJK said:

American Sniper though. Yea, it was a good movie that got a bunch of Oscar nominations and played to the patriotic nature of many people. But movies like that come out all the time. Lone Survivor had the same patriotic feel, similar reviews, yet only did 1/3 of AS's business. AS got a lot of oscar attention, but not nearly as many noms as a movie like La La Land or American Hustle, which still their DOM totals added together don't equal American Sniper.

American Sniper's box office is still stunning but I was impressed how well it did OS considering the subject matter, $197m OS while it pales to the domestic total is still impressive. 

[baumer]

7 hours ago, Kalo said:

Yeah Jumanji definitely deserves a mention, considering it's looking at a domestic BO north of $300m. was a loose sequel (reboot?) to a 90s movie that most people only vaguely remember. and it has already out-grossed in with inflation, not to mention it was a really fun decent movie.

 

Speaking of which @baumer are you ever going to finish that Box office through the years write up? 2017. was incredible for massive breakouts like Jumanji, Wonder Woman and It. 

 

Yes, I will finish it.  I just got busy and my schedule changed over the last few months.  I keep meaning to come back to it.  I feel shitty for abandoning it.  But I will get back to it.  

[La Binoche]

GHOST. Not only a smash in the US, but at the time the highest grossing film of all time internationally. 

[Tauren Warlock]

The Dark Knight. We're are nearing its 10th year anniversary.

Edited January 13, 2018 by Tauren Warlock

[Joel M]

11 hours ago, La Binoche said:

GHOST. Not only a smash in the US, but at the time the highest grossing film of all time internationally. 

 

It was #2 behind E.T. which made 304m in 82' and another 20m in '85. 

 

And it is notable how suddenly the OS grosses expanded in '89-'90. For every one of the mega hits of the 70s-80s (besides E.T.)  a little over-under 200m OS was the ceiling. And in the span of 89-90 we got this:

Indian Jones 3         277m OS

Back to Future 2      213m

Pretty Woman          285m

Ghost                      288m

Dances with Wolves  240m

 

I don't think it was just inflation, it looks like OS markets had another expansion back then, maybe a little smaller than the early 00s expansion or the China explosion a few years ago.