THE LIST Jan. 1- Dec. 31

I am amazed that at least one member of our group isn't doing backflips and crowing over the entirely irrelevant fact that Avatar has now become  the "highest grossing film of all time." That particularly distinction has become so entirely meaningless I'm not sure why the numbers are taken all that seriously anymore. Factoring for inflation, the highest grossing film of all time is still, and will probably always be, Gone With The Wind.  I've never figured out why Hollywood doesn't track ticket sales instead of box-office gross, which is, over time, a ridiculous apples to oranges comparison.

Originally posted by saturnwatcher I am amazed that at least one member of our group isn't doing backflips and crowing over the entirely irrelevant fact that Avatar has now become  the "highest grossing film of all time." That particularly distinction has become so entirely meaningless I'm not sure why the numbers are taken all that seriously anymore. Factoring for inflation, the highest grossing film of all time is still, and will probably always be, Gone With The Wind.  I've never figured out why Hollywood doesn't track ticket sales instead of box-office gross, which is, over time, a ridiculous apples to oranges comparison.

That's easy, because the box-office gross looks like more money, thus it helps their arguement that they MUST spend $200-$300 million to make their epic blockbusters. As for "Gone With The Wind", when you factor inflation to any movie that over 70 years old, of course THAT movie is going to look like the biggest grosser.

Originally posted by saturnwatcher . Factoring for inflation, the highest grossing film of all time is still, and will probably always be, Gone With The Wind.  I've never figured out why Hollywood doesn't track ticket sales instead of box-office gross, which is, over time, a ridiculous apples to oranges comparison.

Because money is more important than anything else to Hollywood.

The only relevant way to measure movies against each other is by considering ticket sales, rather than box-office gross. It is ridiculous to say that such and such a movie made $100 million in 2009 when tickets cost 10 bucks each and suggest that in some sense it outpeformed a movie that made $40 million in 1975 when tickets cost $3. Clearly, but any rational system of measure, the 1975 film did considerably better. In the same sense, Gone With the Wind has not only outperformed every move made since, it has outperformed most of them by a lot. I suspect that if box-office receipts had been accurately recorded back in the late teens and early twenties of the last century, Charlie Chaplins films would have blown everything away.

Originally posted by saturnwatcher I am amazed that at least one member of our group isn't doing backflips and crowing over the entirely irrelevant fact that Avatar has now become  the "highest grossing film of all time."

I hope you're not talking about me. But if you insist, yes, I'm very happy it has made a lot of $$$, unadjusted, of course.

The fact that it has pushed Titanic out of the number one spot is the only bright spot. However, Avatar has benefited enormously not just from average ticket prices higher than Titanic, but the fact that a huge portion of it's total box-office has come from 3D ticket sales which are almost twice as high. It is just a completely preposterous means of comparison.

How the hell can you hate Titanic?!!!!! It's the perfect movie!!!

Titanic was the furthest thing from a pefect movie. It was just the most over-produced "chick flick" ever made, and the only reason it made as much money as it did was because of 14 year old girls drooling over Leo De-crap-io!