What boxoffice runs are unbelievable in retrospect?

[lilmac]

Shrek 2 made nearly a billion back in 2004. 

[vc2002]

Avatar was an astounding leggy movie in spite of its already big opening and there is not a possible comparison with any other blockbuster. A x10 multiplier from a over $70m opening is absurd. But Titanic was another thing. It goes beyond the absurd. It is unique. This is the showdown adjusted:

 

http://boxofficemojo.com/showdowns/chart/?view=weekend&adjust_yr=2015&adjust_mo=&id=alltimegrossvs.htm

 

Look at 10th weekend of each film. Titanic did $36m (God level legs), Avatar $16m (Superb legs). Then, Phantom Menace, another leggy film, with a great $6m weekend (great legs). And finally the "usual" blockbusters like TDK, Avengers or Shrek 2, making barely $2m or $3m (normal legs).

Damn Titanic still making over 1m a wknd while at the same wknd other modern films were out of tracking already.

[sfran43]

Great point.

 

You:  945

You: 10 oclock, bring a friend.

 

 

 

• Locksley, I'm gonna cut your heart out with a spoon!

 

 

• Just a minute. Robin Hood steals money from my pocket, forcing me to hurt the public, and they love him for it? That's it, then! Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!

 

• (after running Guy through) Well at least I didn't use a spoon.  

 

Isn't he just a compassionate soul.      

[Mattrek]

Avatar had a good, strong run, starting high, with low drops, but had nothing even close to Titanic's legs.

A typical movie makes half its final gross in the first ten days, give or take a couple.

Avatar took 21 days.

Titanic, 44.

Avatar had 16 weekends where it grossed a million dollars or more.

Titanic had 30, unadjusted.

Titanic's run was as far beyond Avatar's as Avatar's was beyond average.

Avatar's legs were astounding in this day and age where a good movie has a multiplier of 3. Titanic was released in a completely different era. The Internet wasn't really around for instance. Movie going habits were totally different. We had much more entertainment options in 2009 then we had a decade earlier. VHS was just starting back then. Streaming wasn't even in people's vocabulary. It is just as impressive if not more so with all the competition it faced. Especially movie theatre competition. Avatar faced Sherlock (62m), Alvin (45m) and It's Complicated (23m) the next weekend. Titanic faced nothing opening over 10m for 9 weeks!

[Harpospoke]

 

• Locksley, I'm gonna cut your heart out with a spoon!

 

 

• Just a minute. Robin Hood steals money from my pocket, forcing me to hurt the public, and they love him for it? That's it, then! Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas!

 

• (after running Guy through) Well at least I didn't use a spoon.  

 

Isn't he just a compassionate soul.      

 

I was actually going to ask about some lines with a spoon in them.   I remember laughing very very loud at that.   Rickman is a minor god.

[sfran43]

I was actually going to ask about some lines with a spoon in them.   I remember laughing very very loud at that.   Rickman is a minor god.

 

For you Harpospoke: 

 

Sheriff of Nottingham: Locksley! I'm gonna cut your heart out with a spoon!

 

Robin of Locksley: Then it begins...  

 

Sir Guy of Gisbourne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?

 

Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's dull, you twit! It'll hurt more! I want this brigand found. Starve them out, slaughter their... No, take their live stock. I want Locksley's own people fighting to bring his head in.

Edited January 16, 2015 by sfran43

[alisson23]

HTTYD 2's drop wasn;t that much of a shock if im being honest,  i'd  be lying if I say I didn't kind of expect a KFP2 type run. I never felt any buzz for it.

The OW for HTTYD2 was very disappointing for a sequel from a movie very well received. The sequel is overated, i sleep in some parts of film.

Edited January 16, 2015 by MazeRunner23

[lilmac]

The OW for HTTYD2 was very disappointing for a sequel from a movie very well received. The sequel is overated, i sleep in some parts of film.

 

It recovered nicely though.  Likely profitable.

[lilmac]

Avatar's legs were astounding in this day and age where a good movie has a multiplier of 3. Titanic was released in a completely different era. The Internet wasn't really around for instance. Movie going habits were totally different. We had much more entertainment options in 2009 then we had a decade earlier. VHS was just starting back then. Streaming wasn't even in people's vocabulary. It is just as impressive if not more so with all the competition it faced. Especially movie theatre competition. Avatar faced Sherlock (62m), Alvin (45m) and It's Complicated (23m) the next weekend. Titanic faced nothing opening over 10m for 9 weeks!

 

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.

[LexJoker]

Napolean Dynamite had a spectacular Indie run.

[Harpospoke]

For you Harpospoke: 

 

Sheriff of Nottingham: Locksley! I'm gonna cut your heart out with a spoon!

 

Robin of Locksley: Then it begins...  

 

Sir Guy of Gisbourne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?

 

Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's dull, you twit! It'll hurt more! I want this brigand found. Starve them out, slaughter their... No, take their live stock. I want Locksley's own people fighting to bring his head in.

That's the one!

 

Oh my god I couldn't stop laughing when he said that.   It was all in the way he delivered the line.

[baumer]

Rickman rules in Robin Hood.

[75Live]

and when he kills the guy

 

"well at least I didn't use a spoon....that's good steel"  

[TServo2049]

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.

True, but at the same time, late-90s release windows were usually 6-9 months, not 3 months. And if a film was very successful and leggy, a studio might still hold back the VHS release so as to not cut off the theatrical revenue (Jurassic Park didn't release to video until October 1994, and both Titanic and The Phantom Menace took close to a year).

You were following things and I was only a kid, so I won't pretend I know more than you, but release windows WERE longer from all I can recall.

Edited January 16, 2015 by TServo2049

[lilmac]

True, but at the same time, late-90s release windows were usually 6-9 months, not 3 months. And if a film was very successful and leggy, a studio might still hold back the VHS release so as to not cut off the theatrical revenue (Jurassic Park didn't release to video until October 1994, and both Titanic and The Phantom Menace took close to a year).

You were following things and I was only a kid, so I won't pretend I know more than you, but release windows WERE longer from all I can recall.

 

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...."

[Jonwo]

Titanic's run was incredible simply because everyone had written it off, even Paramount and Fox hoped at best, it would break even due to its huge budget at the time and the many issues in production.

[Walt Disney]

To think about unbelievable runs, I looked at the top 200 domestic grossing movies of all-time (adjusted for inflation). I wanted to see which films I was shocked to find on the list. Here's a link to the rankings just for reference (in case anyone is curious where I am getting my information from) : http://forums.boxofficetheory.com/index.php?/topic/16207-top-200-domestic-grossing-movies-adjusted-for-inflation/  .

 

There are some movies that you would expect to find on a list like that. There are others that just had incredible runs that were quite surprising in retrospect.

 

The first film is 35) Love Story.  I hardly even remember Love Story. Yet, it must have had a monster run to put up numbers like that. I am shocked to see it on the list.

 

Number 59 is The Passion of the Christ. The Passion of the Christ is a horrible movie. Forget about historical accuracy (like the thoughtful Roman Emperor), there is bad plot development and bad acting. It is a fundamentally poorly made film. Yet, it was a massive box office success. A true blockbuster, which is very rare for an indie film.

 

Number 66 is Tootsie. That's not a movie that I think of when I think blockbuster. Yet, there it is. Very high up on the list.

 

Number 100 is House of Wax (1953 version). That's a massive number for a horror movie. Very rare do horror movies become blockbusters. Horror movies usually make a lot of profit because they have low budgets. House of Wax is able to compete dollar for dollar with a lot of the biggest blockbusters of all-time. That's an impressive run.

 

Number 127 is Young Frankenstein. I don't really think blockbuster when I think of Young Frankenstein. It had a big time run.

 

Number 150 is Tom Jones. That's not the type of film you would think of finding here.

 

Number 153 is Psycho. Psycho is a surprise to find on this list because it's an indie that far exceeded expectations. Alfred Hitchcock was contracted to direct a few films for Paramount. Paramount didn't want to waste one of their contracted movies on Psycho. Hitchcock filmed and financed Psycho on his own by setting up his own studio (Shamley productions) just to make Psycho. Paramount agreed to distribute it, since Hitchcock was financing the film on his own. Psycho became a massive and unexpected hit. That is a huge surprise in retrospect.

 

Number 165 is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That movie is like Stacy Keibler.... it is 90% legs.

 

 

[TServo2049]

Correction: Shamley Productions was not set up just to make Psycho. Shamley was the production entity Hitchcock set up to make Alfred Hitchcock Presents. But everything else is correct.

Love Story was huge, it was like a "grown-up" Nicholas Sparks movie. And it had a hit single (not a song heard in the movie per se, but rather an instrumental piece from the film that was then set to lyrics and sung by Andy Williams).

Edited January 17, 2015 by TServo2049

[Maxmoser3]

American Sniper is already surpise

[CelestialFairyIX]

Frozen's domestic and WW run surprised me.  I knew the film would pass Tangled but earn $400 million domestically and then go on to earn $800 million in other territories just blew my mind.  Big Hero 6 has already surprised me, it's the most silent $200+ million domestic grossing film I have ever seen and it might still pass the $220 million mark!