Gone With the Wind (1939) Box Office:20 million Tickets Sold in the First Year.

[pieman]

19 hours ago, Juby said:

GONE WITH THE WIND (Budget $3.977 mln) ......... /ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION/ (ATP $8.34, Dec. 2015)

1939 .......... $20,000,000 ...................................... /$695 mln/

1941 .......... $11,000,000 ........... $31,000,000 ..... /$366.96 mln/

1942 .......... $4,000,000 ............. $35,000,000 ..... /$123.56 mln/

1947 .......... $???

1954 .......... $???

1961 .......... $???

1967 .......... $???

1974 .......... $???            ............ $189,523,031

1989 .......... $2,403,316 ............ $191,926,347 .... /$5.05 mln/

1998 .......... $6,750,112 ............ $198,676,459 .... /$12 mln/

ALL  ........... $198,676,459 .................................... /$??/

 

Over $1.2 mld DOM adjusted only from 6 of 10 releases! Mojo has wrong data, adjusted number for Gone with the Wind should be more than $1.7 mld, and today average ticket price is $8,61 not $8,34 when I calculate this!

 

1941 and 1942 are still part of the first run release. It was just released in new areas i.e. outside of New York and Los Angeles.

[DeeCee]

29 minutes ago, pieman said:

 

1941 and 1942 are still part of the first run release. It was just released in new areas i.e. outside of New York and Los Angeles.

Not necessarily.  It does seem like there were gaps of several months when it was not in any theatres.  

[Rthmessiah]

8 hours ago, Jonwo said:

Not related to GWTW but I assume that when they introduce Cinemascope, Ultra Panavision etc they bumped up ticket prices. 

 

When did multiplexes become more mainstream? 

 

3 hours ago, Telemachos said:

 

While there were some "duplex" theaters in the 60s (and I think some very isolated and rare 4-screen theaters), multiplexes didn't really become a thing until the 80s. 

 

Cinemascope  that was big investment theatres needed to make significant changes to theatre to accommodate.

 

first Duplex was in 50's in Toronto place still exists plays films during film festival otherwise mainly theatre productions

AMC started in 60's as its name implied American Multi-cinema they build multi screen complexes (most cases converted existing single screens) not sure off hand how many screens got to.

Toronto had first big multi at Toronto Eaton centre it was like 18 screen (expanded later years) that was in late 70's however majority of  auditoriums where like theatrettes (most not even seating 100 people)

Multiplexes as we know today started late 80's more 90's

Globally there were in the 70's twins and anything up to 6-7 screens, a 7-plex built in Sydney in the 70's replace basically 6-7 single screen picture palaces that all closed until decades later when it was carved up, its total seating was greater that some of the 20+ screen multis built  in the US in late 80's to mid 90's.

 

Thing is even with 70's early-mid 80's having some   theatres with more than one screen it was rare for a film to play more than one screen, so it could be the biggest film of the time and in say a 4-plex still only played on one screen 4-5 sessions a day. The Varsity Twin in Toronto when it opened Star Wars played both screens (only place in city doing so) and on one screen it was in mono sound the other have the new Dolby stereo.

 

Even when big multiplexes and even megaplexes started up a lot didn't screen all day, so you could have a 25-plex that mon-Thu didn't have sessions before 4-5pm and only had morning and early matinees  Fri-Sun and Sundays there could have also been session restriction.

 

Theses days a lot of multiplexes you have to play multiple screens to even get near the capacity of the old single screen theatres(but offering choice of sessions vs only playing 5pm,730pm,10pm), India still has a lot of old 1000-2000 seat theatres that fill with Bollywood product

 

 

Edited January 5, 2016 by Rth

[Juby]

53 minutes ago, pieman said:

 

1941 and 1942 are still part of the first run release. It was just released in new areas i.e. outside of New York and Los Angeles.

 

Yes, but av. ticket price were diffrent in each year.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/about/adjuster.htm

[pieman]

5 hours ago, DeeCee said:

Not necessarily.  It does seem like there were gaps of several months when it was not in any theatres.  

 

It's essentially fact. The film was in general release for about 5 years. Not sure where you are getting these gaps from. Perhaps during the transport of the film reels across the country.

[pieman]

5 hours ago, Juby said:

 

Yes, but av. ticket price were diffrent in each year.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/about/adjuster.htm

 

Probably quite minor, also dramatically different from 2015 prices.

[DeeCee]

5 hours ago, pieman said:

 

It's essentially fact. The film was in general release for about 5 years. Not sure where you are getting these gaps from. Perhaps during the transport of the film reels across the country.

Various articles from the New York Times at the time of release suggest the advanced screenings at the higher prices were from January 1940 to early October 1940 (It was at the Astor Theater on Broadway for 43 weeks up to Oct. 13).  There was an anniversary screening in Atlanta on Dec. 12 1940 and then it went into general release in January 1941.  So there was a gap of around 3 months between the first release and the second release unless it was being shown elsewhere in the US.

 

I think these 2 releases should be separated due to the huge difference in prices charged.

[Jonwo]

7 hours ago, pieman said:

 

It's essentially fact. The film was in general release for about 5 years. Not sure where you are getting these gaps from. Perhaps during the transport of the film reels across the country.

 

There was a documentary on the Blu-Ray of GWTW that said that the prints were sent to different parts of the country and some of them were a little worse for wear by the time they got to more rural areas. 

 

I saw the most recent remastering at the BFI IMAX and WB have a fantastic job restoring it but I guess it like Wizard of Oz is part of cinema history so the costs to remastering it are offset by people either wanting to buy it on Blu-Ray or television companies wanting HD copies. 

Edited January 5, 2016 by Jonwo

[DeeCee]

It would be interesting to know how many prints were actually released.  

[pieman]

3 hours ago, DeeCee said:

Various articles from the New York Times at the time of release suggest the advanced screenings at the higher prices were from January 1940 to early October 1940 (It was at the Astor Theater on Broadway for 43 weeks up to Oct. 13).  There was an anniversary screening in Atlanta on Dec. 12 1940 and then it went into general release in January 1941.  So there was a gap of around 3 months between the first release and the second release unless it was being shown elsewhere in the US.

 

I think these 2 releases should be separated due to the huge difference in prices charged.

 

Well that proves my point. It was shown in New York and then went into general release in January 1941, why would that not be included in the first run. I also doubt that ticket prices changed astronomically between 1939 and 1941. I feel like you just want to make the argument that Star Wars TFA run is better than Gone with the Wind.

[DeeCee]

1 hour ago, pieman said:

 

Well that proves my point. It was shown in New York and then went into general release in January 1941, why would that not be included in the first run. I also doubt that ticket prices changed astronomically between 1939 and 1941. I feel like you just want to make the argument that Star Wars TFA run is better than Gone with the Wind.

Prices for the first run in 1940 for evening sessions started at $1.10.  The general release in 1941 saw prices 50% lower. 

Edited January 6, 2016 by DeeCee

[arlo]

2 hours ago, pieman said:

 

Well that proves my point. It was shown in New York and then went into general release in January 1941, why would that not be included in the first run. I also doubt that ticket prices changed astronomically between 1939 and 1941. I feel like you just want to make the argument that Star Wars TFA run is better than Gone with the Wind.

 

They may be missing some but here are the Gone with the Wind releases according to the-numbers.com:

 

December 15th, 1939 (Exclusive) by MGM (Atlanta Premiere) 
January 17th, 1941 (Wide) by MGM, released as Gone With the Wind
March 31st, 1942 (Wide) by MGM, released as Gone With the Wind
August 21st, 1947 (Wide) by MGM
June 3rd, 1954 (Wide) by MGM
March 10th, 1961 (Wide) by MGM
October 14th, 1967 (Wide) by MGM
September 18th, 1974 (Wide) by MGM, released as Gone With the Wind
February 3rd, 1989 (Limited) by MGM
June 26th, 1998 (Limited) by MGM

 

Even if we include the first 3 releases all as the first release, that still pales to TFA's admissions even now, according to the EW article I cited on page 2 that reported 59.5 million admissions total across all 3 releases before the 4th release in 1947.

 

Edited January 6, 2016 by arlo

[OEAI]

I have always been curious about BOMs list of inflation-adjusted list having GWTW as number 1.  With something like a 2.5 yr initial run and 7-8 re-releases.  As others have said, tracking number of tickets sold would make this so much easier.  I agree too that there has to be some control for US population.  Also, in the best of all worlds, not just number of days in release/re-release but number of theaters/theatrical engagements (The-Numbers has some of this data - but not for GWTW).  This string is very useful - assuming the data retrieved is reasonably accurate.  I will freely admit that my interest in this topic has been to prove that Star Wars IV has been and still is #1 (hey - I was a 9 year old boy in 1977, what do you expect).  This is what I come up with using GWTW numbers from this string and data gotten from other sites for the rest:

 

Total tickets sold (including re-releases)              Tickets sold (initial run only)             Percent of US population buying ticket (initial run only)

1.  Star Wars IV  (173,403,304)                          1.  Star Wars IV (133,592,981)          1.  Star Wars IV  -  61%

2.  GWTW (157,400,000)                                   2.  Titanic (128,923,348)                   2.  GWTW  -  57%

3.  Titanic (137,329,646)                                    3.  Avatar (99,968,820)                     3.  Titanic  -  48%

4.  Avatar (100,705,547)                                    4.  GWTW (76,000,000)                    4.  Avatar  -  33%

 

# tickets per theatrical engagement

1.  Star Wars IV  -  3969

2.  Avatar  -  2207

3.  Titanic  -  1575

 

For comparison, Star Wars VII:  99,788,705 tickets so far in first 29 days (that is 31% of current US population).  Eventually it will be 4th in total tickets, 3rd in initial run and probably just inch out Avatar for % population buying ticket to take 3rd in that category too.  If it has a typical run for current blockbusters of 160 days (2012-2015 era movies) that will be about 36,000 theatrical engagements.  I expect about $930,000,000 (128,900,000 tickets) when it is done.  That would be 3581 tickets per theatrical engagement - #2 on that list.

 

May the Force be with you.

 

Edited January 17, 2016 by OEAI

[DeeCee]

Welcome to the forums. 

[Giesi]

OEAI, welcome to BOT. Can I ask you where you got the info from, that 99.788.705 tickets were sold already?

[George Parr]

Yeah, I don't think that is the case. The 3D and IMAX shares so far make it virtually impossible for Episode VII to have come anywhere near the 100 million mark. I think Spizzer had shown some calculations for that recently.

 

The same is true for Avatar, which had an even higher 3D-share. It's attendance should be closer to 80 million than to 100.

Avatar only comes in at 100 million tickets sold if you take the average ticket-price of the year and divide the total made by this number. But Avatar wasn't anywhere near this average ticket-price, it was much more expensive than that.

Edited January 17, 2016 by George Parr

[OEAI]

Hello everyone.  I agree with you indeed.  For Avatar I used the ticket average for 2009 for the initial release of 234 days (indeed, likely an overestimate of # tickets as not factoring in 3D or IMAX).  For the "re-release" in IMAX/3D experience (83 days) I used the IMAX ticket price of about $14.50 at the time.

 

There will be the same issue for VII.  I had read somewhere that it had approached 95m tickets.  I did the simple math at $8.34 I think BOM has it listed.  Also, likely an overestimate of true # tickets sold.

 

If someone has more accurate numbers that would be great.  I may look.  Some of the articles mention a certain dollar amount for IMAX at least so we could separate that out.  I recall something listing % standard, % 3D and % IMAX (possibly 38% standard, 50% 3D and 12% IMAX) in the first week of release.

 

I will do that math later...headed to church.

 

[OEAI]

Okay here we go:

using the following for average prices (in my area standard price ticket is 8.50 which correlates well with BOM listed avg of 8.34 - so I similarly downward adjusted 3D and IMAX prices in my area for calculatons).  Standard $8.34  3D $10.34.  IMAX $15.34.  One could argue the accuracy of these prices but it is a place to start.

 

using 38% standard, 50% 3D and 12% IMAX.

 

8.34(0.38x)+10.34(0.5x)+15.34(0.12x)=$825,932,841  (as of day 28)

 

x=81,132,890 tickets  for Star Wars VII so far

         30,830,498 standard

         40,566,445 3D

           9,735,967 IMAX

 

this is good stuff.  I love crunching numbers.  I will try to find this info for Avatar later.

 

thoughts?

 

 

 

[OEAI]

As a rough Avatar estimate we could run the same proportions as listed for VII.  Although probably more people saw Avatar in 3D or IMAX vs VII in those formats?  

 

I will still do with 100% IMAX for the IMAX 3D experience release which is 736,727 tickets.

 

if we use same proportion as VII for initial Avatar release then:

 

99,788,705/81,132,890=99,968,820/x

x=81,279,332 tickets

 

then add back the 736,727

 

so 82,016,059 total tickets for Avatar!

Edited January 17, 2016 by OEAI

[OEAI]

Lastly.  Using these better numbers/proportions, Star Wars VII will end up at approx. 104,801,736 tickets if the $930,000,000 estimate is correct.