It was recently announced that Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland - has grossed enough to be the 10th grossing film of all time. This shouldn't surprise anyone. Movies now filmed for 3D and IMAX should now be on the list at the highest grossing films of all time from now on. Those films are pulling in $10 a ticket for any showing - and I'm sure even more in prime time showings. The extra novelty of a bigger screen or 3D allows people to feel they are paying the right amount - even though it's a ridiculous fee for seeing a film.
George Lucas publicly said after the success of Avatar - that 3D technology is now at a point that he wants to redo Star Wars in 3D. I think it doesn't have much to do with the technology, George, I think you saw the dollar signs Avatar put up - and suddenly your penis is feeling a bit small. That's one of the real reasons you felt you had to digitally add scenes that did not fit into the films that everyone had enjoyed for 20 years - because it brought home the bacon.
I think we should all get more interested in who's sold more tickets - rather than which film made more money. If the media insists on announcing how much a film made - and how it ranks on the all time list - that they make note of the ticket prices - and adjust.
According to the adjusted ranking for box office gross on Box Office Mojo - Burton's Alice in Wonderland hasn't even cracked the top 100 yet. We are still looking at Gone With the Wind being the top grossing film of all time at $1.6B domestic gross.
If you don't feel like clicking on the link - here's the top 10.
#1 Gone With the Wind [1939] - $1.6B
#2 Star Wars [1977] - $1.4B
#3 The Sound of Music [1965] - $1.1B
#4 E.T. [1982] - $1.1B
#5 The Ten Commandments [1956] - $1B
#6 Titanic [1997] - $1B
#7 Jaws [1975] - $1B
#8 Doctor Zhivago [1965] - $986M
#9 The Exorcist [1973] - $879M
#10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarves [1937] - $866M
It's hard to take money and movies seriously because you can cut them to say just about whatever you like. Not that studios care - but I would like to see each Sunday they roll out how many tickets they sold - and see if the film that's #10 on the weekly list actually sold more tickets than the film at #1 - because of the $3 second run theaters. Just saying... It would be interesting...
It's amazing how many people don't seem to understand that you can't measure the popularity of a film by box office grosses because of inflation over the years.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the adjusted list doesn't include a single film from the past decade, which should be ringing major alarm bells in Hollywood.