The top 100 All-Time Box-Office Hits

[TulitaPepsi]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 6:19pm

Adjusted for ticket-price inflation.

Some extremely surprising results here:

14 of the 100 are Disney animated features. But who would guess that #10, Snow White, would be followed by 101 Dalmations at #11? And wasn't Sleeping Beauty a huge finiancial dissapointment? But it's #30, right after The Jungle Book. No Cinderella and no Peter Pan.

Disney's live-action Swiss Family Robinson is #81.

The only live-action musicals on the list are The Sound of Music (#3), Mary Poppins (#24) - ok, it is * mostly * live-action - Grease (#26), My Fair Lady (#54), and West Side Story (#66).

Biggest surprise: No Wizard of Oz. And Cleopatra is # 39 - at its release, it was a bomb that nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox.
Box Office Mojo

Updated On: 5/8/10 at 06:19 PM

[nmartin]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 6:29pm

The Wizard of Oz only became wildly popular through television.
There are some rotten pictures on that list. Says a lot about taste.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 6:52pm

That list is flawed. For example, it isn't consistent with box office receipts. Both Gone With the Wind and Star Wars include re-release figures. The Sound of Music does not, and should be in first place, if you adjust for inflation and only use original release results.

As for Cleopatra, it was not a bomb, at all. It was the Number 1 box-office hit of 1963. The list doesn't take the film's costs into consideration.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 6:55pm

The big myth about "Cleopatra" was that it bombed and nobody went. On the contrary, as this list indicates.

The problem was that Fox spent so much money on it, there was no way it was ever going to recoup. I can only imagine that if it made the equivalent of $534 million in today's money, it must have cost them close to a billion, if converted.

There is a fascinating documentary on the DVD that talks about how the spending went so wildly out of control.

It was the gross mismanagement of this film that almost shut down 20th Century Fox, not the film itself. Of course, they all said it "underperformed," but unless it had become the biggest box office hit of all-time, it would be "underperforming" to them. So it was mislabeled a "bomb."

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:01pm

JB2, The Sound of Music includes rereleases as well. I saw it when I was 13 in 1975, for a 10-year anniversary nationwide rerelease.

And, adjusted for inflation, GWTW would still be #1, if you remove all rereleases.

Still, your'e right that by including rereleases here, the list is skewed. For example, "Fantasia" is high up on this list at #21. It was a modest hit and actually lost a lot of money when it was first released, thereby labeled a "bomb." But when it was rereleased in the early '70s it caught on with the hippie counterculture and became a big hit. SO many people went to see that movie stoned. Repeatedly. The rerelease was actually one of the top hits for a couple of years then. Nearly 30 years after it was made.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:10pm

The 1971 rerelease poster of "Fantasia" always cracked me up, and the marketing folks obviously knew their audience. It was in so many head shops for years ...

[StageManager2]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:20pm

Interesting that TITANIC is the only movie from the past 25 years to have made the Top 10.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:22pm

I didn't say The Sound of Music didn't have any re-releases(although, it only had one wide re-release, in 1973), and a couple other single theater re-releases, at various times. I said the figures do not include its re-releases. Why are you saying it does? And GWTW would be Number 2, not 1.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:32pm

JB2---I don't think you're reading this right.

The ^ indicates "documented" rereleases, meaning they have the actual dates and amounts for at least one rerelease.

But then it goes on to say:

Most pre-1980 pictures ACHIEVED THEIR TOTALS through multiple releases, especially Disney animated features which made much of their totals in the past few decades belying their original release dates in terms of adjustment.

This means that these totals include rereleases. They're just not documented as to the actual dates and amounts. But the rereleases ARE included in the totals here.

And GWTW is still #1, if you want to count only the initial release of these movies.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:39pm

We will have to agree to disagree. Re-release totals are NOT included for TSOM. If they are not documented and they don't know the amounts, they can hardly be included!

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:47pm

SM2---it would be impossible for films today to do as well as they did before television and home video, etc.

The only way for people to see GWTW was in a movie theatre. And there were no alternative "entertainments" other than radio or live theatre. People went to the movies back then. Sometimes 2-3 times a week.

As for Sound of Music, it was one of the last "big" movies to be broadcast on TV. They held out for decades! But I saw it twice in the movie theatres before it ever aired on TV, once as a kid, and once in high school. But that was only way we could see it then. Of course it came out on VHS (I believe) when I was in college, and that changed everything.

But it was a different era. And people just aren't "going to the movies as much anymore. They know it will show up on DVD or cable or on-demand in a matter of months after its theatrical release.

[degrassifan]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:50pm

Glad to see the top three still hasn't changed.

I'm very surprised Disney's Cinderella is not on the list, but Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia are? And 101 Dalmatians is number 11?

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:56pm

Okay, for argument's sake, JB2, (and I still don't agree that these reported totals don't include rerelease money unless they have a ^) ... let's say you're right. Now click on GWTW and read the amounts.

The unadjusted gross grand total for GWTW is listed as $198,676,459. According to them (and you), GWTW only had 2 "documented" rereleases, in 1989 and 1998. If you remove them and only count the rest of the amount, it's listed here as $189,523,031.

That's their unadjusted gross. The unadjusted gross for Sound of Music is $158,671,368.

So even if you don't count that GWTW was released in 1939 and Sound of Music in 1965, there is more than a $30 million difference. If you adjust that, you're looking at a hell of a lot more. They're not even remotely in the same ballpark actually.

Updated On: 5/8/10 at 07:56 PM

[CapnHook]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:56pm

Where is FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY???

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 7:58pm

There is no income quite that "gross" to adjust, Capn.

[TulitaPepsi]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 8:51pm

Fascinating info here, thanks for the corrections and debate.

b2b, wasn't there a similarly 'trippy' poster for the ALICE IN WONDERLAND re-release that featured the Caterpillar smoking his hookah? I seem to remember it, though only one I could find an image of features just the Mad Tea Party and Cheshire Cat with no caterpillar. It has lots of mod, colorful Art-Nouveau swirls around the edges.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/8/10 at 8:56pm

I found this one, which is 70s psychedelic, but I seem to remember the one you're talking about.



I think they made it (and Fantasia) available as a black-light poster.

Trippy!

[Marquise]

Posted: 5/9/10 at 3:49am

Interesting but I never understood the fixation over what a movie made outside of the industry. Back in the day you saw a film because you liked what you liked. Period.

Now it's all about "the movie I love made x amount and beat the one you like like and is #1", which is akin to the old "my d*ck is bigger than yours" argument.

I mean, really, love what you love. The rest is totally irrelevant really.

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/9/10 at 11:24am

Capn, I actually own from Justin to Kelly! I may have to pop that puppy in today!

[DMsquared2]

Posted: 5/9/10 at 1:18pm

Rocky Horror is a live-action musical.

[nealb1]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 11:34am

The documentary on the making of "Cleopatra," is clearly one of the best, if not the best docs ever made - on the making of a film.

It's too bad that all the cut footage was never found, and restored for the dvd. I wonder if it will be released in BluRay? The double dvd is currently out of print.

[Marquise]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 2:57pm

I own that double disc set. It was released as part of Fox' 5 Star Collection. It is *stacked* with extras. I hope it all transitions to a blu ray release.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 3:20pm

Avatar hasn't wrapped up its release yet, has it? It may still climb. And I've never understood the phenomenon known as Love Story. Was it just a particularly dry year in filmmaking for that to have been such a hit?

[StageManager2]

Posted: 5/10/10 at 3:32pm

^^^
I heard there were plans to re-release AVATAR in the summer sometime.

Posted: 5/10/10 at 3:50pm

It would be really interesting to include DVD & VHS sales numbers.