nasty_khakis said: "I'm frankly tired of these "records" being used as cheap press releases. Adjust prices for inflation and you'll see most of those records aren't really records. I'm not saying Beetlejuice isn't selling much better than say Rocky or Wolf Hall, but there is no way it's selling more actual tickets than Cats in its early prime."
Amen. I was going to type the same thing, but can getting-winded, so I didn't bother. It is a totally meaningless measure. I can still remember a full-page ad in the Times over 50 years ago advertising that Baker Street (a pretty poorly reviewed musical about Sherlock Holmes) had broken the all-time Broadway record by breaking $100,000 for the first time ever. Business fell pretty quickly, and the show ended up being a 6 or so month flop. But, based on its initial advance, it managed to sell-out for a few weeks at higher pricers than the prior show. At the time, the Broadway was the largest theatre on Broadway; if it sold out, at then current prices, it was going to break the all-time record. The fact that it broken $100,000 for the first time, gave it a little additional drama). Still a meaningless statistic.
Occasionally, I will look at Boxofficemojo.com to look any movie grosses. One of its views is all-time domestic grosses, adjusted for inflation. It looks dramatically different from the non-adjusted,and is a much more meaningful gauge.