Talk:List of highest-grossing films

Billion dollar films

With the confirmation that Jurassic World: Dominion reached the billion dollar benchmark today, we have now gotten to the point where every film on the “Top 50” scoreboard is now at the billion dollar mark.

However, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water are also likely to hit that billion dollar mark, at which point some of these billion dollar grossers will be booted from the list - with this in mind, should we create an additional page for films who have reached the billion dollar benchmark? 216.24.93.167 (talk) 02:42, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

Or treat the limit as a soft cap. When BP2 hits a billion, add it and have 51 films. After 3 to 5 years, we may only be at 60 films, which isn't an over-the-top amount. - wolf 03:43, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

The billion dollar threshold is somewhat arbitrary. It used to be an important milestone but 9 films alone passed it in 2019. I suspect the number of billion-dollar grossers will exceed 100 by the end of the decade. It's only a matter of time before we get a billion dollar "flop". By extending the chart on this list you'd be just tracking a moving target. As for creating a list of billion dollar grossers, I have no objection in principle but would it pass notability? A decade ago there were regular lists of films that have grossed $1 billion, but are these still being written now we have 50? If it's information that readers would want to know maybe a category would suffice. Betty Logan (talk) 04:33, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I think we should keep the table with 50 films, not more, I agree with Betty--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 10:22, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I think it’s a good idea to allow all billion dollar films to be included. If it reaches a point where there’s too many then just drop it back to 50 but for the near future at least I don’t see the problem? Honestly I don’t think we’re gonna have more than 60 anytime soon, only 3 films have done it since covid. So while 2019 did have 9 films pass a billion, I think it’s a much rarer thing now and I’m not sure if we will ever get numbers like that again, and if we do I think it wont be for a while. With the huge amount of films released every year, not to mention the increase in films going to streaming instead of a cinema release, a billion dollar is always going to be a huge milestone and it should be shown. Lukejordan02 (talk) 21:00, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

I would be more inclined to reduce the number of entries in the main table than to expand it. TompaDompa (talk) 10:25, 25 September 2022 (UTC)

Me Too — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.45.1.88 (talk) 04:48, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

a bunch of flims are prob going to reach the billion mark but lets just keep it at 50 for now Nickiswerid (talk) 14:41, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I suggest, the list be expanded to top 100 Marshmallow2211 (talk) 17:03, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

Inclusion of Venom and Morbius in Spider-Man total gross

It seems disingenuous to include Venom, Venom 2, and Morbius to boost Spider-Man to the #3 highest grossing franchise spot when Spider-Man appears in neither of these three films. By this logic, the Punish films should be included in the total gross since the character had its origin as a Spider-Man antagonist. It would make more sense, for example, to include Avengers movies in Thor's franchise gross (I'm not suggesting this).

Shouldn't the Sony Universe be separated into its own category, as has been done for the Marvel and DC cinematic universes? For the moment, their relation to Spider-Man is tenuous at best. LiamTownsend (talk) 01:08, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

WP:INUNIVERSE connections are not a factor for Wikipedia. Venom is licensed to Sony under the same IP as Spider-Man, as is Sinister Six, and I presume Morbius too. A closer analogy would be that of the Joker and Catwoman films, where Batman does not appear. They are all part of the same IP, regardless of whether Batman actually appears. No character or film is included to "boost" a franchise's ranking. The selections reflect the licensing reality of the property; the inclusion or exclusion of the character the IP is named after is entirely incidental. Betty Logan (talk) 02:15, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Technically, Batman (or more accurately, a young Bruce Wayne) did appear in Joker, but the other points stand. 24.15.214.201 (talk) 03:01, 7 October 2022 (UTC)

Jurassic world dominion

Resolved

 – Updated in line with exact figure at The Numbers. Betty Logan (talk) 09:24, 2 October 2022 (UTC)

Anyone pls update the collections of the film as everyone knows that it has surpassed the 1 billion mark already....but its not updated here as box office mojo hasn't updated.... someone pls correct it .....thks! Harharshit (talk) 18:25, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Pls refer to the list 2022 in film Harharshit (talk) 18:31, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Jurassic World Dominion became the 50th film to gross $1 billion worldwide. Harharshit (talk) 18:34, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

We are aware that Jurassic World has passed $1 billion. The problem is we don't have an exact figure for it yet. The box-office trackers will be updated in due course and when they are we will update the gross here. Betty Logan (talk) 19:45, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Jurassic-World-Dominion-(2022) Harharshit (talk) 04:52, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Well u can find the exact numbers on. https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Jurassic-World-Dominion-(2022)

So pls update the collections. Thks Harharshit (talk) 04:53, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Can we update the latest collections of the film by reference from "The Numbers"? Harharshit (talk) 14:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

 Not done per previous discussion--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 17:30, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Anyone pls update the latest collections of Jurassic World Dominion Harharshit (talk) 05:32, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Harharshit (talk) 05:33, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Here are the latest numbers Harharshit (talk) 05:34, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

 Not done per previous discussion--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 11:22, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

References

change order of MCU movies

phase 4 has now grossed more than phase 1 and should therefore be swapped with phase 1 in the table in the franchises section. Die moehreee (talk) 10:19, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

That would necessitate making the phases the top-level grouping in the MCU, i.e. we would have to remove the Infinity Saga vs. Multiverse Saga distinction. I don't have any strong opinions on whether that would be an improvement or not, but that is at any rate the reason phase 1 appears above phase 4 at the moment. TompaDompa (talk) 14:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

@TompaDompa ah I see. thanks! Die moehreee (talk) 14:55, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

Harry Potter chamber of secrets re-release

There's been a re-release of Harry Potter chamber of secrets for its 20th anniversary. https://www.boxofficemojo.com/releasegroup/gr1318015493/ Henjin Dono (talk) 21:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

 Done--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 01:55, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

philosopher's stone also in re release see https://www.boxofficemojo.com/release/rl2280030977/weekend/ 92.236.253.249 (talk) 12:13, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

That is an issue, look at the weekend gross and the total gross, 6K and 1.5 million are not the same thing--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 12:30, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Monsterverse

Completely missing Kong: Skull Island 92.15.223.76 (talk) 21:03, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The franchise name is "Godzilla", not the Monsterverse, that's why that King Kong movie is not included, it is not a Godzilla movie--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 21:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

MonsterVerse is listed by itself at List of highest-grossing science fiction films#Highest-grossing sci-fi film franchises and film series with four films including Kong: Skull Island. The total $1,948,092,152 isn't enough to make the list here so MonsterVerse is only shown as a part of the Godzilla franchise but that means a film without Godzilla is omitted. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:30, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Inflated Box Office Mojo numbers

Hi! I don't know if this will be useful but I frequently look and compare this list to the one on Box Office Mojo I've come to notice a lot of potential errors with their figures that have occurred recently. Here's what I found;

Spider-Man: No Way Home - $1,971,439,845 ($54,546,201 is listed as being part of a 2022 Australian re-release)

Black Panther - $1,382,248,826 ($34,650,853 is listed as being part of a 2020 South Korean re-release)

Beauty and the Beast - $1,305,611,599 ($9,151,657 is listed as being part of a 2020 United Kingdom re-release, $32,035,379 is listed as being part of a 2021 Australian re-release)

Frozen - $1,304,550,716 ($23,042,616 is listed as being part of a 2022 Australian re-release)

Jurassic Park - $1,109,802,321 (It seems that the original release's total has been increased from $912M to $978M, $10,103,318 is also listed as being part of a 2022 Netherlands release)

Joker - $1,104,943,613 ($30,485,331 is listed as being part of a 2022 Spanish re-release)

The Lion King (1994) - $1,063,611,805 (Like Jurassic Park, it seems the original total has been increased to $858M, from what I recall the original total is supposed to be around $768M)

Zootopia - $1,042,533,689 ($18,741,794 is listed as being part of a 2022 Australian re-release)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - $1,023,842,938 (I'm not sure if this is valid or not but I brought it up before here, the total given is from a 2021 re-release comprising of Italy ($4,410,216), Netherlands ($4,328,645), United Kingdom ($1,698,396), and South Korea ($2,504,289). From my previous discussion it looked like the actual total should be $1.009bn).

It looks like the bulk of these issues are due to Box Office Mojo adding in totals for Australian re-releases, I didn't go into too much depth with the specifics of these inflated numbers but I'm guessing they're duplicated from their original gross.

There are also other box-office numbers that have lesser degrees of total inflation (<$10M), I originally wasn't going to list these but I figured I'd do it anyway;

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - $2,069,521,700 ($1,066,200 is listed as being part of a 2020 Australian re-release)

The Lion King (2019) - $1,663,250,487 ($5,020,760 is listed as being part of a 2020 United Kingdom re-release)

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - $1,058,682,142 ($1,261,755 is listed as being part of a 2022 Colombian re-release, although there was a re-release for the United States and Canada in August so this one could be valid).

I'm not 100% into the know-how of how box-office numbers work so all of this is gathered from surface-level details and my assumptions could be wrong. Regardless I do hope this helps for future reference. AverageLogic (talk) 20:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing these to our attention. There is an ongoing problem with Box Office Mojo. We have set up a task force page to deal with it at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Film/Film finance task force#Box Office Mojo. Betty Logan (talk) 21:26, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree. This is causing a confusion. Marshmallow2211 (talk) 17:06, 30 December 2022 (UTC)

List cap

On the main list, the current cap is set at 50 films. Any thoughts on perhaps changing that to films with a mimimum $1 Billion box office? (WW/USD) I don't think that films breaking that number are going to be coming rapidly, in significant numbers, but if we find the list growing too long too quickly, we can always go back to the set cap of 50 or so entries. It's just that, while 50 is a somewhat arbitrary number chosen by us, the billion dollar b.o. return is a significant milestone in the film industry, and right now, (and especially coming out of the pandemic) I think it's worthwhile including all films that achieve that number (with the caveat that the list doesn't grow too much, too fast). Thoughts? - wolf 09:28, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I have no objections. Timur9008 (talk) 10:03, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I disagree, as I said in the previous discussion--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 10:52, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

Huh. I forgot about that thread. (pinging Betty Logan, Lukejordan02 & TompaDompa) - wolf 11:32, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I would (still) be more inclined to reduce the number of entries in the main table than to expand it. TompaDompa (talk) 14:31, 13 December 2022 (UTC)

I’d personally like to see every billion dollar film included, as Wolf said it’s a significant milestone in the film industry. When you think of all the thousands of films released yearly, and yet the most billion dollar films we’ve received in a year was 9. If wiki allows all the National Film Registry films to be listed on that page, I don’t see why we can’t list all the billion dollar films here. Lukejordan02 (talk) 20:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

• I think it should be kept at fifty films. The purpose of the chart is not to track "significant milestones", it's job is to document the highest-grossing films. As TompaDompa points out, it is questionable that even a film ranked #50 meets this criteria, let alone beyond that point. If editors think $1 billion is a significantly notable threshold then it would be better to create a separate list covering that particular aspect, because at some point we would have to make the cull here regardless. And when would we make that call? If not 50, then 60? 70? Would it exceed 100? I have no doubt there would be editors who would favor a never-ending list. If a dedicated article existed we could even cut this list down a bit. Considering this article stands at over 300kb, I don't think it's a good idea to extend coverage of an aspect that isn't strictly within the scope of this article. Betty Logan (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

  I concur that 50 is more than enough. We have to cut it off somewhere, and the further we go down the list, the less relevant the film is. It basically gets into "grossing-quite-a-bit films" territory, meaning films like #53 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which was only the fifth highest-grossing film of 2017. The "High-grossing films by year" section is a good complement to the absolute list of 50. Erik (talk | contrib) ^{(ping me)} 15:23, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Actually, reading Betty's post, she (as usual) makes several good points. One significant take away is the size of this page; 316.5Kb! (and someone just cut 5.5kb off it today)... it's huuuge, and very likely to continue growing. It seems that what began as the title states, a list of highest grossing films, has grown into a comprehensive study of financing in the film industry over the last 100+ years. There was mention of creating a new page for a list of films with a billion dollar box office, but that would just be a duplication.

However, per WP: Article size, we should consider forking off some content and slimming this page down a little. If we went with the suggestion of the "list of films to make a billion dollars at the box office", then we would move the table out of this page, along with any supporting prose, and then rename this article. Or, we could move all five tables from here to a new page, and otherwise leave this article as is, with all the prose and links in place of each table directing readers to the appropriate location. This could help, considering the amount of content these tables currently hold.

While there's concern about allowing one table to grow a few entries longer than 50 over the new couple years, there's a table here with over 150+ enteies, that grows by one, if not three or four entries, enery year, and there'a a table with well over 300+ entries, and it will continue to grow as well. And then there's also the two smaller tables. Perhaps moving all five would be the best option. I'd be interested in seeing how many kb's the five are combined. But, I'm also interested to see what, if anything, any one here has to say on the matter. Goos day all - wolf 09:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Btw, it turns out the table sizes are, (in order): 32.4kb, 4kb, 160.3kb, 12.7kb & 34.4kb. (fyi) - wolf 10:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

What do you guys think about (for example) List of highest-grossing films by year? That table is the biggest one in the page, if we move that we can reduce the size of this page--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 11:24, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The WP:SIZERULE for splitting articles refers to readable prose, and this article stands at 54kb of readable prose, so the article is only really at the size where we should consider it, rather than something that should be done. I think the year chart is an important component of the topic and probably shouldn't be split out. For me personally, I think the most logical section to split out (if we go down that route) would be the franchise chart, because it is essentially covering a different topic i.e. franchises and series, as opposed to individual films. A film section could be created at either List of highest-grossing media franchises or Lists of feature film series, which are actual franchise/series topics. Betty Logan (talk) 13:24, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

This is a WP:Featured list precisely because it is comprehensive. Splitting off parts so it's less comprehensive doesn't seem like a particularly good idea to me, and the specific suggestion above to remove the "High-grossing films by year" table would lead to an increase in recency bias on this page (some is inevitable due to inflation and whatnot, but we currently mitigate it and in my opinion should continue doing so). This isn't actually that big of an article; the byte size is large due to some rather hefty tables, but in terms of prose there is only about 4,000 words (this says roughly 5,400, but that appears to include the explanatory notes for the tables, of which the ones for the "High-grossing films by year" table alone account for roughly 1,000 words). Compare that to, say, Sinking of the Titanic (a WP:Featured article) which is at over 13,000 words. If we really want to reduce the size of this article in terms of bytes, my first suggestion would be to reduce the size of the tables that are longer than they need to be, i.e. the main table and the franchise table which could both do with fewer entries (say, top 25 films and top 10 franchises). In general, Wikipedia's box office coverage would benefit from focusing on a lower number of high-quality articles instead of the current approach with a large number of articles that we are unable to maintain to an acceptable standard (and which for the most part aren't particularly well-written to begin with). TompaDompa (talk) 03:18, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

Godzilla refs

The reference section still has the refs for the Godzilla films enough though the franchise is no longer in the highest grossing franchises section. 2601:249:9301:D570:B958:671A:92BB:984 (talk) 19:11, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I think we can delete them, @Betty Logan: what do you think?--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The sources are not necessary now the entry has dropped off the table. If it re-enters it can be easily retrieved. Betty Logan (talk) 23:15, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Avatar 2

Why Avatar 2 The Way Of Water Is Not In The List ? 41.216.202.39 (talk) 20:44, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

The movie hasn't made enough money to be in the top 50--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 21:42, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

List of Billion Dollar Films Wiki Page

As of December 27, 2022, there are 50 films that hit billion dollars. But Avatar 2 is close to one billion, so why not do a List of Billion Dollar Films Wiki Page. 24.45.5.109 (talk) 03:10, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, once Avatar 2 hits the $1B mark, it will bump Jurassic WD off the list. Switching to a soft-cap would avoid that, the list would simply go to 51 entries instead of 50. Or there could be a "List of films that made a billion dollars at the box office", but that would be somewhat redundant. If you have other ideas, feel free to post them. This has been brought up recently at #Billion dollar films and #List cap, up above. - wolf 04:22, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

I guess, as with many things, it depends. If $1bn is considered to be notable as a threshold then I’d suggest this is more natural than an arbitrary threshold of 50 (why is this not 20, 75,100, 250). If $1bn is not notable is there another threshold that is?

Whilst I’ve not done a detailed review I recall seeing a number of specific BBC news articles this year when films crossed $1bn. Whilst Wikipedia is not news, I’d suggest that, for a list article, the fact a certain limit prompts main stream news organisations to write a specific article is a good indicator of a notability cap for the list / a list.

However these are just some thoughts and I’ve not done a detailed review of the position. Tracland (talk) 19:12, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

The $1 billion milestone probably is notable, but notability pertains to whether or not there is sufficient coverage to create an article for a topic, it does not determine the coverage within the article—that depends entirely on the topic and scope of the article. An article already exists to cover such important milestones at List of fastest-grossing films. The purpose of this article is specifically to cover the topic of highest-grossing film; milestones should only be covered to the extent they are relevant to the topic, and lists should be long enough to present the relevant information but should be no longer than that or they become WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

Prior to 2012, grossing a billion dollars was synonymous with being the highest-grossing film of the year; however, these days most $1 billion grossers are not the highest-grossing film of the year. Sometimes they are not even the highest-grossing film of the season. So how long should the chart be? Well, over half the films in the top 20 were the highest-grossing film of the year, as were 13 out of the top 30. However this only extends to 16 out of the top 40, and 19 out of the top 50. In other words, once you get to about 40 films on the chart over 60% of the films on the chart have nothing to do with the subject of the article. In addition, in the last 20 years every year (with the exception of 2020) has produced a film that has placed in the top 12 (it may well go back further than that too). So on that basis I would say the chart needs to be at least a top 20 to serve the topic, and a top 25/30 could do the job. The reason we have a top 50 is simply because it has always been that way. Betty Logan (talk) 23:07, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Please help update the top 50 WW

I don't have edit access... so someone who does, please assist. Thanks.
Jurassic Park should be #30 (2022 re-release)
The Lion King (1994 version) should be #39 on the list, above Rogue One. That pushes out JW Dominion from the top 50.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_lifetime_gross/?area=XWW Estariel (talk) 04:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

The figures ate Box Office Mojo have double-counted their reissue grosses making them incorrect. This is a well-known issue that affects many re-released films and you can see the full list of affected films at Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Film finance task force#Box Office Mojo. In the case of Jurassic Park and The Lion King specifically, these errors are explained in more detail at Talk:List of highest-grossing films/Archive 19#Jurassic Park and Talk:List of highest-grossing films/Archive 18#50 billion dollar grossers / The Lion King. Betty Logan (talk) 10:40, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. In that case, Jurassic Park still has a 2022 netherlands release ($10m) that hasn't been added, if you are including the mexico release ($270k) on top of the pre-2022 total of $1,033,928,303:

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/releasegroup/gr4086256133/?ref_=bo_tt_gr_6

New total should be 1,044,302,321. Estariel (talk) 14:37, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

That figure is almost certainly incorrect. According to the Dutch charts it grossed $2,382 for the weekend, and somehow accumulated $10 million, which would appear to be a mathematical error. That is almost certainly the Dutch lifetime gross, including the original release. This is part of the problem with BOM—adding reissue grosses to the original run gross, and including the original run gross in the re-release gross, and thus double counting certain grosses for certain countries. The most recent film, Dominion, only grossed $8 million in the Netherlands. Betty Logan (talk) 14:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Understood, thanks. Estariel (talk) 15:49, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 January 2023

Change the Avatar: The Way of Water global gross from the current incorrect number 1.397 billion to the correct number, 1.379 billion. 73.252.72.107 (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: Figure is consistent with the source as of this posting. The weekend figures are only estimated at this point, but it is usual practice to update the gross using the estimates and then update with the actuals in a day or two. Any inaccuracies will only be minor and will be corrected in due course. Betty Logan (talk) 19:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Avatar vs Top Gun

There's an argument about if Way Of Water or Maverick made more dosh. Couple edits have already been done, so take it here before it becomes edit war. One user says TGM should be above cos BoxOfficeMojo is otherwise used, and I get that. But the other is using The Hollywood Reporter, which is more reliable. So I think Avatar 2 should be above.

Pinging @User:Luke Stark 96 and @User:Cardei012597

88.111.95.74 (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

I am willing to just wait until Box Office Mojo updates their numbers. I am not too impatient on this particular matter. I can wait. Cardei012597 (talk) 18:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. Stick to using Box Office Mojo and wait for them to update. We can afford to have some patience here. TompaDompa (talk) 18:50, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for the almost edit war, I didn't mean to be rude, but usually we use BOM here, and sometimes also The Numbers. In the main table, for Avatar 2, we use both, and now The Numbers updated the gross and I have just updated the page--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)