Movie success stats question

[Schar]

Does anyone know why movie success is measured by $$$ instead of number of seats sold? Movies are constantly breaking records, but those really don't mean that much because of inflation and higher ticket prices. I'm sure a lot more people went to see say Star Wars, or Gone With the Wind, or some other older movie than Bruce Almighty, but they say Bruce Almighty was more successful because it made more money. That doesn't make sense to me, anyone know why that is? Just one of the mysteries of the industry?

[Lhon]

Here are the inflation adjusted stats:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted/

Although that page says that the average 2002 ticket price is $5.85. I wish it was, matinees are $7 for me, and regular price is $9.50.

[Schar]

Hey awesome link, thanks man . Pretty weird that i randomly guessed 2 movies that i knew were old and pretty successful and they end up being the #1 and #2 . Still i wonder why they measure movie success with a dollar amount? Maybe because it's all about the benjamins pretty much everywhere, but i'd be more interested to see how many people go and see my movie if i made one.

[Cybsled]

Well yea, if you make a change for inflation then Gone with the Wind was the biggest blockbuster of all time since your average ticket was like a nickel or a dime ;p

[Fadaar]

jesus 9.50 for a ticket? sucks for people that live in the big big cities, only 7$ for prime time Friday/Saturday showings here... 5.50 for matinees, which is when i usually go

[Dokomo]

Gone with the Wind at least deserves that title

[Iannis]

because moneycrunching is more important than gud movies.

Titanic was the bestest movie ever!!!
how gay even adjusted that still made it onto the top 10 movies.

[Kaylum]

Originally posted by Lhon
Here are the inflation adjusted stats:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted/

Although that page says that the average 2002 ticket price is $5.85. I wish it was, matinees are $7 for me, and regular price is $9.50.

the theater i go to is $4 for all shows before 5pm, and $5 for all shows after 5pm. (and no its not a discount theater, they get all the new releases)

so it really just depends on where you live.

[Cybsled]

Most urban area theatres are higher priced...however, the majority of the US isnt urban, therefore not everyone has 10 buck tickets

[Darkmyst]

Even adjusting for inflation you don't really get a feel for just how amazing the numbers for Gone with the Wind are. What did movies tickets cost back then? 25 cents?

Using 25 cents as the average ticket price that works out to close to 795,000,000 tickets sold. Or something one the order of 1 ticket sold for every 3 to 4 people on the planet at the time. If we say that the average ticket price to Titanic was $6.50, it's $600M box office take only works out to about 92.3M tickets or less than 1/8th of how many were sold for Gone with the Wind.

[Araysar]

Most urban area theatres are higher priced...however, the majority of the US isnt urban, therefore not everyone has 10 buck tickets

Actually, majority of the US is urban, something along the lines of 3 out of every 4 Americans live in an urban center.

[Millie]

Originally posted by Darkmyst
Even adjusting for inflation you don't really get a feel for just how amazing the numbers for Gone with the Wind are. What did movies tickets cost back then? 25 cents?

Using 25 cents as the average ticket price that works out to close to 795,000,000 tickets sold. Or something one the order of 1 ticket sold for every 3 to 4 people on the planet at the time. If we say that the average ticket price to Titanic was $6.50, it's $600M box office take only works out to about 92.3M tickets or less than 1/8th of how many were sold for Gone with the Wind.

Movie tickets were probably even less than $.25 at the time.

What further complicates the matter, however, is the fact that movie attendance in general was stratospherically higher back when Gone With the Wind came out (1939) than it is today. Back then, about 90% of the American public saw a movie every weekend. Those numbers even held steady during the Great Depression.

The invention and proliferation of Television in the 40s and 50s killed movie attendance. I believe per capita movie attendance today is about 75% lower than it was in 1939.

I don't mean to detract at all from the phenomenal success of a movie like Gone With the Wind in its time. But by the same token, it was a lot easier for a movie to make money back then than it is today. It seems counterintuitive, but it's true.

[Szlia]

It would be interesting to see if the success started to be mesured in dollars when the attendency collapsed. It could have been a way to be sure to have new records years after years eve with dramatically less spectators.

Btw, in france and switzerland - and I assume in the whole europe - success is measured in ticket sales.

[Telrem]

In the UK it's measured in Bling.