Sunday, July 20, 2008

Actually, Batman still Lags Spiderman at the Box Office

From CNN:
"The Dark Knight" took in a record $155.34 million in its first weekend, topping the previous best of $151.1 million for "Spider-Man 3" in May 2007 and pacing Hollywood to its biggest weekend ever, according to studio estimates Sunday.
However, if you correct for inflation (calculator here), $151.1 million in 2007 is equivalent to $159.46 in 2008. Thus in real terms, Spider-Man 3 is still ahead of The Dark Knight. I wonder what the top grossing movie of all time really is, adjusted for inflation, or perhaps as a % of GDP.

3 comments:

KipEsquire said...

Why adjust for "inflation" (i.e. of a basket of goods) rather than the simple rise in the cost of movie tickets (i.e., going from nominal dollar admissions to real number of tickets sold)?

Justin M Ross said...

I was thinking in terms of the return of the movie to the producer, rather than the cost to consumer. The real number of tickets sold would also be interesting, especially expressed as a percentage of the population.

Mayfield said...

Adjusted for inflation. Gone with the Wind.

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

In Atlanta at the Fox Theater, ticket prices were 40 times the regular price.

Would anyone today pay multiple times the regular price to see a movie?