Talk:List of highest-grossing films

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Harry Potter Philosophers's Stone VS. Sorcerer's Stone

Im not an American hater or anything but can people please stop changing it to Sorcerer's Stone? The book and movie is known as Philosopher's Stone everywhere except the USA. It's also a UK based film and book so should be as it is in the UK, which is Philosopher's Stone.

Titanic vs Avatar

Please state that 2D films are $3 cheaper than 3D films —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.205.148.188 (talk) 13:09, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe in theaters near your place. In other regions or countries, ticket prices differr in completely other ways. E.g. at my place, 2-D was 1.50€ cheaper than 3-D. At the cinema in the next town, the difference was only 1.00€. IMAX tickets are generally more expensive than "normal" cinema tickets. - 87.139.3.204 (talk) 08:34, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Remember, Highest-grossing is entirely different from Number of admissions, and it is the former we are comparing and ordering. Especially seeing as the cinema industry doesn't track ticket sales/admissions, and there are a whole host of issues in calculating this, not least the difference in 2D/3D prices which you mentioned. There is also the difference in IMAX 2D, IMAX 3D, child, senior citizen, student and family ticket prices, 2 for 1 deals, annual cinema passes, other loyalty discounts and offers, different chain/theater pricing (cheap dollar theaters, expensive multiplex), premium seats, as well as different pricing in hundreds of different nations. Taking all that into account, it is very hard to calculate accurate ticket sales which is what you are referring to when suggesting 2D films are $3 cheaper than 3D films (which is also entirely incorrect). For this reason the cinema industry tracks box office revenue as opposed to sales, and this is what is listed here on Wikipedia. Feudonym (talk) 02:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Adjust for Inflation

"Avatar" has the advantage of showing in 3-D (which usually commands an average $3 extra per ticket) and coming out at a time when even 2-D movie tickets are more expensive than ever. According to the National Association of Theater Owners, the average ticket price in 2008 was $7.18, up 56% from prices in 1997 when "Titanic" was in theaters.

A look at domestic grosses adjusted for inflation shows a more realistic view of "Avatar"'s performance.

In the U.S., "Avatar" has grossed $555 million making it the second highest grossing domestic (as opposed to worldwide) film of all time. Titanic is temporarily still in the lead here with $600.8 million. -Source [1] -User:Assyrio —Preceding undated comment added 05:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC).

All grosses should be adjusted for inflation, as per this: http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nicmart (talk • contribs) 21:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Dows not seem to make much sense to me. 1$ bought 1$ in 1997, and it buys 1$ in 2010. Of course it is interesting to have a list without inflation influence, but the claim of the "main list" is absolute numbers, I think. Surely, this can be discussed, but why suddenly change this system that has worked out good for the past few years? - 87.139.3.204 (talk) 08:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Please also note, that in 1997 much less tickets were sold in markets like e.g. China. (Also, there were fewer "big" movies in the cinemas 10 or ven 20 years ago, so those movies did not have the same rate of "competition" as nowadays, but that's a different topic.) Maybe the average ticket price grew slightly in US and Europe, but maybe it did not do so in foreign or new markets. It's hard to say how the average ticket price *really* grew world wide. (At least I don't know any reliable source). - 87.139.3.204 (talk) 08:43, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Epic fail. A list not adjusted for inflation is extremely misleading. Think of the lines of Star Wars compared with Avatar. Star Wars was a much bigger deal. In my opinion, there needs to be both.Valcumine (talk) 19:42, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Inconsistent Highlighting

I noticed that the highlighting for this page is inconsistent. At the top of the page it states that films from 2009 are highlighted while elsewhere it states that films currently in theaters are highlighted. This needs to be changed.

avatar went to 1,372,993,105 please change it

As I'm sure everyone is aware, Avatar is rapidly rising in position, so much so that its position on the Worldwide Highest Grossing list is now completely wrong. As of this moment, Avatar has grossed over a billion dollars and should be 4th on the list, well above its current incorrect position. Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0321198020100103?type=marketsNews 19:00, January 3, 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: The page has now been correctly edited for this rapid growth. Avatar is now listed as 4th in the highest-grossing films list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.95.55 (talk) 21:11, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

someone please update, according to Box Office Mojo, Avatar has overtaken Pirates of the Caribbean —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.105.222.177 (talk) 19:05, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: Avatar is now 2nd highest - http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a194624/avatar-surpasses-return-of-the-king.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.37.34 (talk) 16:45, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

The Avatar listing should be updated every day. It keeps making more money.146.115.115.160 (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Warning: by Wednesday, it might surpass titanic, as it is just 2,000,000 shy of the record. Source: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/avatar-tops-box-office-sixthstraight-week-ap --JereMerr 22:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--JereMerr 22:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--JereMerr 22:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--JereMerr 22:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremerr (talk • contribs)

It has now surpassed Titanic, as noted on the Wikipedia Main Page. A link to this list is also provided, but the list is currently still listing Titanic as #1.

Furthermore, Titanic is marked as "currently in theaters" instead of Avatar. How silly! Bobber0001 (talk) 15:22, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Ticket Sales

I have changed "ticket sales" to "box office takings" as the former is highly misleading, this is a list of money made not tickets sold. As the list is not adjusted for inflation it is inevitably biassed towards newer films, and against older films. Rje 20:02, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Half blood prince gross

The film has made 934 million you are off by five million check 2009 in film the movies file or the harry potter film series and it's there so fix it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.134.235.215 (talk) 22:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

dollars v. tickets

Of course, home viewing of movies (on disc or broadcast) has never been a component of these lists, and I would argue that private viewings, even on the largest screens, are simply not the same thing as theater attendance. I imagine many films have reached the majority of their all-time composite audiences by way of television, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with anything here. Spark240 (talk) 19:28, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Adjust for inflation

i tend to agree that we need an inflation adjusted list would be better however what needs to be done if possible is to break down the revenue as a per country basis and add on the inflation from the individual countries and sum up the adjusted revenue of each country to get a world-wide total. now i do agree with 64.131.146.108 in the fact that with movies released over multiple years need to be separated but if this isn't possible then even have my first idea would be better than nothing. and yes i am aware of how much work this might seem but to at least get a fairly accurate result this i what needs to get done —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.59.117.37 (talk) 15:52, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

What exactly is the purpose of these lists? Answer that question first. If the idea is to measure the "absolute bigness" of a film, the correct figure would be number of TICKETS sold, entirely regardless of dollar figures. With dollars, there's not just the matter of general inflation, but also the fact that the *adjusted* price of a movie ticket is much higher now than in decades past, compared to other goods and services (despite the article's example of 1970-to-1980, the general trend to date has been substantially the other way). Spark240 (talk) 17:37, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

There should be an inflation-adjusted version of this page. It's silly that WP doesn't have this, when everything else is here. Timneu22 (talk) 00:02, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Even 'number of tickets' is an imperfect measure. It can be polluted by 'multiple visit' users, and it surely has to be adjusted for the cinema going population of the Earth of each year (otherwise, the same 'future bias' exists). All of this is clearly going to fall foul of 'original research' prohibitions on encyclopedias. If you want to do that, you need to write an article or three in economic journal, and even then it requires judgement calls we aren't qualified to make. 121.208.18.179 (talk) 11:52, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Another source

I found a top 10, all-time, worldwide, adjusted list, it' wihout citations, so I don't know if it's credible [http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/toptenlists/Highest_Grossing_Movies_of_All-Time_(inflation_adjusted) ] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.103.34.170 (talk) 23:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Proposal: add a column to the list with grosses in 2000 current dollars

WP:OR seems to be under cited here. Such a statistic must surely offend against that policy, right? Otherwise, we could have 'theoretical number of tickets sold based on the inflation adjusted price relying on the US being exactly the arithmetical mean for world inflation figures' which is such a horrendously useless parameter the best it can do is lie. Not only is it original research, it can't be right. I sympathise with the 'inflation is a monster that must be accounted for', but inflation is not the only factor impacting on ticket sales (population surely must be, as must economic conditions outside pure macroeconomic inflation). 121.208.18.179 (talk) 12:03, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Avatar

Avatar recently crossed the 1 billion mark, making it in the top 5 movies. I visited this article when i noticed this, an found it was incorrectly placed. Can you please fix this error? Thank you. (Pyramid Productions (talk) 20:47, 3 January 2010 (UTC))

EDIT: This has been fixed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.71.95.55 (talk) 21:12, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Number of Movies

I believe we should change the highest grossing list back to 50 as many other Wikipedia articles reference this list as a top 50 list and some of the information on this article does not correspond with 100 movies but rather 50 films. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sufi34745 (talk • contribs) 21:57, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

You cannot adjust a film's worldwide gross for inflation

If anyone has any basic knowledge of macroeconomics, they would know that inflation is, "the overall general upward price movement of goods and services in an economy". An "economy" is defined by a nation or region, and not by a general global rise in prices. It's impossible to calculate, due to different national inflationary rises in each nation, as well as different monetary figures (US Dollar, Euro, Pound, etc). For example the List of highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada gives inflation-adjusted figures for North America, which is a region in which inflation can be utilized. My point is, don't add "before inflation" when info regards worldwide grosses of films, because it is impossible to calculate. Thanks. BalticPat22Patrick 02:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

• However, world-wide gross isn't reported as multiple economies/currencies, it's reported in a single economy, the US Dollar. Does a movie's world-wide gross change daily because of changes to exchange rates? No, because by the time the figures are reported that foreign currency has already been exchanged for the dollar and is "in the bank". Since this conversion has taken place and we're now reporting as a single currency, there is still value in knowing the inflation-adjusted value. Jj04 (talk) 17:28, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It is reported in US Dollars, but of course isn't made up of just US dollars, all sorts of economies were involved. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 20:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Edit ROI percentages that don't compute

{{editsemiprotected}} Please change the ROI % with the following values:
1918 The Road to Ruin, ROI: 99,900
1973 The Exorcist, ROI: 3,254
1976 Rocky, ROI: 20,355
1978 Grease, ROI: 6,476
1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, ROI: 7,452
1985 Back to the Future, ROI: 1,745
1989 Batman, ROI: 761
1994 The Lion King, ROI: 1,642
1995 Toy Story, ROI: 306
1997 Titanic, ROI; 824
2001 Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, ROI: 680
2003 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, ROI: 1,091
2009 Avatar, ROI: 378

If you are able to change them, then go ahead. I have found that many film's ROI's are either miscalculated or outright ridiculous. BalticPat22Patrick 15:11, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello, it can be changed as long as you provide a reliable source to back this information up.  fetchcomms☛ 15:56, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't provide new information. The old information wasn't properly calculated. Using the numbers in the table (Worlwide Gross as Vf, Budget as Vi) and the formula from the ROI article the table links to: (Vf - Vi)/Vi gives different ROI % for the 13 films mentioned.Gijswijs (talk) 00:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

 Done after verifying the math, however,  Not done: on Avatar. My math shows 396. I updated it to this number. Please verify this. --Shirik (Questions or Comments?) 08:26, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Verified. The Worldwide Gross of Avatar changed after I proposed this edit. Formula's would help in tables like this. Thnx for the edit. Gijswijs (talk) 22:35, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

2010

So, the year is 2010. Would anyone agree that the highlighting of films of 2009 is still relevant? Would the creative highlight-adder be offended if the highlights of 2009 films were replaced with highlights of 2010 films? I am guessing that the objective was to note current-year films. Please provide your thoughts :) GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 03:46, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't mind, but since we are fresh out of 2009, they are still relevant. I think we should wait a while, or wait until a 2010 film ends up on this list. Either way, the notes will need to be updated when it happens. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 03:54, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes I would wait until a 2010 film ends up on the list. Which, could take months. :) —Mike Allen 03:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yup, wait for a 2010 film. -- Love, Smurfy 18:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we should keep it how its been and highlight the movies that are currently in theater. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.178.177.198 (talk) 02:34, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

In this case, Avatar should still be coloured since it's apparently still playing in some theaters (at least the US gross still increases each day on Boxofficemojo).--Roentgenium111 (talk) 18:31, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Wrong numbers

umm.. there's a title that says: Highest-grossing films: This list includes those films which have held the record for highest grossing film released in the United States and Canada, before inflation. It says that the numbers are only from USA and Canada. However, in Titanic's and Jurassic Park's gross the numbers are from the worldwide gross. Also, Jurassic Park didn't set a record, so it should be like this

1915- The Birth of a Nation - 6 years held - $9,283,673 gross at time record.

1921- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - 16 years held -$10,000,000 gross at time record.

1937- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - 2 years held - $66,596,803 gross at time record.

1939- Gone with the Wind - 34 years held - $189,523,031 gross at time record.

1973- The Exorcist- 2 years held - $232,671,011 gross at time record.

1975- Jaws- 2 years held - $260,000,000 gross at time record.

1977/1997- Star Wars- 6 (non-consecutive)years held - $307,263,857 gross at time record.

1982- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial -15 years held - $399,804,539 gross at time record.

1997-Titanic - 13 (ongoing) years held- $600,788,188 gross at time record.

Request

I'd really like to see a list of highest grossing films by year of release, if anybody is interested in putting that together.[2] Thank you!—RJH (talk) 18:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Mickey

I was surprised that some film I've never heard of (Mickey) made $18M in 1918. That would make it the highest grossing silent after Birth of a Nation. It's on IMDB the same, but these 'facts' get copied from site to site and acquire faux legitimacy. Various sites including Wikipedia's Silent Film entry quote a 1932 list in Variety of top grossing silents - with no Mickey. It's surely an error. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.192.78 (talk) 08:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I found a 1939 source [3] claiming 8,000,000. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

New Avatar Gross

Avatar is now at $1,637,262,209 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy741 (talk • contribs) 00:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

make that 1.841 BILLION dollars....here is the source: http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap.org/avatar-tops-box-office-sixthstraight-week-ap--JereMerr 22:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--JereMerr 22:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--JereMerr 22:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)--JereMerr 22:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeremerr (talk • contribs)

vandalism.

Someone put "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" as "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" Mr. Slashy Man (talk) 20:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is the international title and the name of the Wikipedia article so this is correct and not vandalism. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is the US title. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

ROI Column

This should be removed from the tables as it is totally incorrect. Since the ROI is calculated solely from the production budget, it does not include marketing and distribution costs (which, in this day and age, can be astronomical). Furthermore, the term "ROI" means Return on Investment and does not reflect what studios make from their films as theatres often take up to 45% of the gross for themselves. Since the percentage theatres take varies a great deal, there is no possible way to calculate (even roughly) what kind of a return the studio will get. MassassiUK 09:26, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Avatar highest-grossing film of 2009?

Is it based on the amount of money made from its opening day (December 10, 2009) to December 31st, 2009? Or is it just the fact that it was released before 2009 ended that it can technically be counted as the highest-grossing film of 2009? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 02:03, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It is the highest-grossing film that was released in the year 2009. That is how it is interpreted. BOVINEBOY2008 :) 02:44, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

What you do with Titanic, you should do with Avatar. Titanic made the massive bulk of it's money in 1998 and there are probably other split grosses all down that list. What makes sense is doing it by the release day! Avatar is the top film of 2009 and The Book of Eli is the top for 2010.Dante2308 (talk) 05:28, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Historical USD rate

Does the article take into consideration the dollar's value throughout different years (like 1990s as compared to 2000s for example), which may affect film's places? 85.132.99.243 (talk) 15:59, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't. The article explicitly notes that due to the complexities of currency exchange rates and inflation rates, there are no accurate depictions of such a list. --haha169 (talk) 05:20, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

New List: Ticket Sales per Capita??

Hey there,

"Highest-grossing" is another way of saying "popular", isn't it? I mean, this list basically tries to quantify how successful the movie is, right?

To do this, I think you need to adjust for 2 things:

   #1 Inflation
   #2 Changing population of the USA, the world, etc

As an example, inflation has changed the worth of $1 by 15x since Gone with the Wind was released in 1939. Also, the USA population has doubled since then also.

My idea: making a list of TICKET SALES PER CAPITA might be more accurate at estimating "popularity", although very labor intensive to do.

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.56.138.53 (talk) 20:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not trying to quantify how popular it is. It's quantifying how much money it's made. Vimescarrot (talk) 10:12, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"Highest-grossing" is another way of saying "popular", isn't it?

No, not at all. Those are two completely different things as ticket prices differ in a single cinema alone, let alone in a country such as the United States, and others all over the world. Ticket sales per capita would be absolutely useless as ticket sales are near on impossible to calculate as it is, especially for a film like Gone With the Wind which has been released multiple times over the last 70 years. Feudonym (talk) 02:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Split Article

This article is too large, it can be very slow to load for many computers, i propose that it should be split into 2 articles, i will make sample pages in my user page and people can decide if we should Zach111493 (talk) 22:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

did it, the three pages are: 1; 2; and 3 Zach111493 (talk) 01:11, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

It's convenient to have all information related to grosses on one page rather than many IMO. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.56.169.148 (talk) 08:45, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I find it very convenient to have all the information listed upon one page and most computers built in the last half decade have no problem loading this page. Even my father's computer (which is the slowest computer i have ever used) has no problem with it. I find the convenience of one page far outweighs the possibility of some computers not loading it. (S. J. Emigh 21:51, 24 March 2010 (UTC)) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scottemigh1994 (talk • contribs)

I guess my 2007 vista is slower than your father's computer, I'm going to delete the test pages and remove the suggestion bar. Zach111493 (talk) 19:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

7 Star Wars

Currently the list of highest grossing series says there are 7 Star Wars movies. I don't want to edit in case there is something you know that I don't, but perhaps this could be fact-checked.Ordinary Person (talk) 02:55, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

There indeed are seven. Have you forgotten the animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars? --haha169 (talk) 19:59, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Have you noticed!

That IMDb,s and Box Office Mojo's chart aren't accurately the same. Just look at where Lord of the Rings:The Two Towers and Star Wars:The Phantom Menace are. Since they are reliable, who to believe? Jhenderson777 (talk) 23:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I guess you compare http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide and http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/. Box Office Mojo was acquired by IMDb in 2008 (see Box Office Mojo#References), and IMDb refers to it for box office stats on its own pages. IMDb is not known for its box office stats and I think the list should continue to use Box Office Mojo. The differences are small but as you note, they can swap close films like The Two Towers and The Phantom Menace. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:21, 9 April 2010 (UTC)