The Force Awakens Early Star Wars 7 Box Office Prediction Thread - Part 3

[kedrell]

Do it. You are still left With 189m from the initial run.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=releases&id=gonewiththewind.htm

I have never, not once, seen an adjusted list that had Titanic #1 and not Gone with the Wind. 2-4 adjust between Avatar, Titanic and Star Wars, but never #1. It is always GWTW.

Well if you do that then yeah it'll come out on top again. But I don't believe that list of re-releases is exhaustive. I don't have any site I can point to but I have older family members who were alive in the 1950's and 1960's who have told me they saw the movie and in a theater, not on TV. So I rather doubt that they only re-released it the 1st time 50 years later. Re-releases of big movies back then was a very common thing to do since there was no home video or anything like that to meet the demand. Not to mention that it was basically free money for the studio.

Edit: Here's more of a list

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031381/releaseinfo

So lots more re-releases but BOM just lumped them all in like they all were in 1939 dollars.

 

[spiderman2]

My point is that movies were comparatively cheaper back then even taking inflation into account. So you can't extrapolate the cost of a ticket in 1939 to today so easily. If a ticket was $.10 in 1939 and the average cost is $8.50 today then that's 85 times more but inflation itself accounts for only 17.07 times of that so tickets are more expensive today. This makes comparing by # of tickets sold very unreliable. If we were just going on strict inflation then tickets today would just cost $1.71 and clearly that's not true.

But I think you would times it by $8.5

 

[kedrell]

$8.50/$.10 = 85

 

[kedrell]

OK I looked it up and average ticket prices in 1939 for adults were $.25 and minors were $.15. Let's split the difference to get $.20 as the overall average. Then $8.50/$.20= 42.5 times. That's still a lot more than 17.07 times which is just pure inflation. In fact ticket inflation has surpassed the national average by 2.5 times as much.

Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/11/entertainment/la-et-mn-original-wizard-reaction-20130311

 

[spiderman2]

OK I looked it up and average ticket prices in 1939 for adults were $.25 and minors were $.15. Let's split the difference to get $.20 as the overall average. Then $8.50/$.20= 42.5 times. That's still a lot more than 17.07 times which is just pure inflation. In fact ticket inflation has surpassed the national average by 2.5 times as much.

Source: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/11/entertainment/la-et-mn-original-wizard-reaction-20130311

I still don't get where you get 17.07 from. If a movie made say 1m back in 1939 you just times that by 8.50 and there is how much it would make with inflation.

 

[kedrell]

Because that's what the inflation calculator said it was. $1 in 1939 is worth $17.07 today.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

But ticket price inflation has outpaced the national average by 250%. Otherwise the average ticket price today would be around $3.41.

 

[spiderman2]

Because that's what the inflation calculator said it was. $1 in 1939 is worth $17.07 today.

http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

But ticket price inflation has outpaced the national average by 250%. Otherwise the average ticket price today would be around $3.41.

What does that even mean by national average by 250%?

 

[kedrell]

$3.41 is what tickets would cost if it stuck to the national average inflation. But $8.50 is what the average today actually is(more or less...I'm simplifying it). $8.50 is around 250% of $3.41(I rounded a tad but this is close enough). That's what I mean.

 

[spiderman2]

$3.41 is what tickets would cost if it stuck to the national average inflation. But $8.50 is what the average today actually is(more or less...I'm simplifying it). $8.50 is around 250% of $3.41(I rounded a tad but this is close enough). That's what I mean.

Oh while that means also older movies where cheaper then really so that would make people go to the movies more to so that really just helps old movies more with inflation then.

 

[smappy45]

Are there any accurate records of the number tickets sold (domestically) for movies since 1930s? If the records are available, why don't they just use the number tickets sold to rank the all time inflation adjusted dom rank, or at least include the information of the number tickets sold besides the USD amounts.

 

[kedrell]

My point is that using #'s of tickets sold in comparison with today is like comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't work because tickets haven't kept steady with overall inflation but rather have outpaced it. Now having said that NOTHING is truly reliable but at least it's a tad better if we just take total grosses a film made and adjust THAT number for inflation which is what I thought BOM was doing with it's adjusted list. But aparently their figures don't match the national average so I don't know what they are doing or how they arrive at the figures they get.

 

[kedrell]

Are there any accurate records of the number tickets sold (domestically) for movies since 1930s? If the records are available, why don't they just use the number tickets sold to rank the all time inflation adjusted dom rank, or at least include the information of the number tickets sold besides the USD amounts.

No I don't think such accurate records exist. There are records but they aren't very accurate to actual numbers of tickets sold. But if there were then it would be fair to skip all the inflation mumbo jumbo and just compare ticket numbers. At least as fair as these things can be which still wouldn't account for many, many other variables thus rendering the entire exercise impractical.

 

[kedrell]

I know it's not going to come close to Avatar, but I'd love to see it surpass Titanic.

It needs $453.4m more to catch Titanic. Not impossible but by no means locked. I personally give it 50/50. And if we bring inflation into it then fughetaboudit.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Kedrell, why do you think Gone with the Wind is always sited as the biggest film of all time do to inflation if it isn't? Why do you think you cracked the code?

 

[kedrell]

I don't think I cracked any code. I just know that if you extrapolate BOM's numbers of adjusted DOM to WW for some reason it loses to Titanic by $300m.

When people talk about GWTW being #1 there's a caveat in there that they are only talking about domestic numbers because until recently that's all hollywood ever cared about. I just wondered about how it stacked up WW.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

I don't think I cracked any code. I just know that if you extrapolate BOM's numbers of adjusted DOM to WW for some reason it loses to Titanic by $300m.

When people talk about GWTW being #1 there's a caveat in there that they are only talking about domestic numbers because until recently that's all hollywood ever cared about. I just wondered about how it stacked up WW.

That just isn't true.

http://www.sky.com/tv/channel/skymovies/gallery/the-top-10-biggest-blockbusters-in-history

http://calculatorgames.info/mogul/

http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...Highest-grossing_films_adjusted_for_inflation

http://inflationdata.com/articles/2013/05/16/highest-grossing-movies-adjusted-for-inflation/

 

[kedrell]

That just isn't true.

http://www.sky.com/tv/channel/skymovies/gallery/the-top-10-biggest-blockbusters-in-history

http://calculatorgames.info/mogul/

http://www.filmsite.org/boxoffice3.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...Highest-grossing_films_adjusted_for_inflation

http://inflationdata.com/articles/2013/05/16/highest-grossing-movies-adjusted-for-inflation/

The first link says $3.3b, the 2nd says $3.8b, the 3rd doesn't give any figure, the 4th says Guinness totals it at $3.4b, and the 5th says Snow White wins this match up with $6.7b vs. GWTW's $6.5b.

My point still stands. There is no true, clear winner in this because there are too many variables that make a fair match-up impossible. So my Titanic calculation is just as valid(as in, not very much) as these others and I had GWTW at $3.5b so I was in the ball park of a few of them.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

The first link says $3.3b, the 2nd says $3.8b, the 3rd doesn't give any figure, the 4th says Guinness totals it at $3.4b, and the 5th says Snow White wins this match up with $6.7b vs. GWTW's $6.5b.

My point still stands. There is no true, clear winner in this because there are too many variables that make a fair match-up impossible. So my Titanic calculation is just as valid(as in, not very much) as these others and I had GWTW at $3.5b so I was in the ball park of a few of them.

No, there is a clear winner. Because 4 out of 5 have Gone with the Wind, and none have Titanic as #1 or ever above GWITW. Heck 2-5 consistently changes, but not #1. Can you find a WW list adjusted for inflation that has Titanic #1?

By the way your point was they only ever give the crown to Gone with the Wind on domestic grounds. That is clearly not the case, simply something you made up.

 

[kedrell]

By the way your point was they only ever give the crown to Gone with the Wind on domestic grounds. That is clearly not the case, simply something you made up.

Then let me clarify, when I said that I was referring to people in these kinds of forums who follow box office statistics and such(like the old BOM forums and box office theory, World of KJ, etc.). They tend to just follow the adjusted chart on BOM which as I said repeatedly, only accounts for domestic.

My main point is that this is not something that as locked down as one might think, otherwise why would there be any disagreement at all? It's not a cut in stone type of thing.

 

[Filmfan93]

So when do you think it will hit $2 billion? I say by the end of this week.

 

[InCali]

My point is that using #'s of tickets sold in comparison with today is like comparing apples and oranges. It doesn't work because tickets haven't kept steady with overall inflation but rather have outpaced it. Now having said that NOTHING is truly reliable but at least it's a tad better if we just take total grosses a film made and adjust THAT number for inflation which is what I thought BOM was doing with it's adjusted list. But aparently their figures don't match the national average so I don't know what they are doing or how they arrive at the figures they get.

I tend to agree with this and it's not just inflation. If we had blurays, streaming, HBO/Showtime/etc. with release dates 4 months after GwtW was released, what do you think those numbers would look like? To a much lesser extent, Titanic falls in that category (remember, I said much lesser t: ). Times are just very different now and they'll be very different tomorrow. On the + side for older movies, there were fewer people and theaters (but also a lot less things competing for the entertainment dollar).

I've said that we should demystify this conversation and talk strictly about tickets sold and not "adjusted" box office because it just adds another layer of confusion to the discussion. Once we are having the ticket discussion, it's easier to have the "Why did so many more tickets get sold way back when?" discussion.

 

[InCali]

So when do you think it will hit $2 billion? I say by the end of this week.

My guess is that it'll take a little bit longer than that. I'd say maybe in the low/mid 1.9B range by next Sunday??

 

[Erzengel]

Just in terms of sports in 1939 versus today. Obviously, tv increased popularity and people actually having to go to events or listen to them on the radio but even some of the most popular sports today weren't popular almost 80 years ago.

 

[InCali]

Just in terms of sports in 1939 versus today. Obviously, tv increased popularity and people actually having to go to events or listen to them on the radio but even some of the most popular sports today weren't popular almost 80 years ago.

I hadn't actually thought of that one, but, yes, sports are entertainment. I can tell you for sure that if I didn't have a gigantic TV and a HD projector with a 120" screen, I'd be spending more time (and money) at the local theaters. Take Sicario for example. I meant to go see it, but when something came up, I decided to wait until I could stream it (and I'm a big Emily Blunt fan). If not for that, I would have been in the theater for sure and I know a LOT of people who say "I'll just wait until it comes out on Netflix".

 

[Erzengel]

Back then, horse racing, boxing, baseball were the popular sports events to go to. Not like in the US now with the big 4.