Posted on 12/29/2017 9:18:37 AM PST by EdnaMode
Did Star Wars ruin movies? Prior to the 1977 blockbuster, a variety of dramas, comedies, animated movies, and musicals were among the top ticket sellers of all-time. Since Star Wars' release, special effects blockbusters dominate the box office.
Here is a comparison between the top 25 ticket sellers (domestic) prior to 1977, and the top 25 ticket sellers from 1977 present. The difference between the two lists is noticeable. In the first group, 16 of the top 25 were nominated for Best Picture. In the second group, only 7 were nominated for Best Picture.
The top 25 movies based on estimated tickets sold (Domestic)
Pre 1977:
1. Gone With the Wind (1939): 202 million tickets sold 2. The Sound of Music (1965): 142.4 3. The Ten Commandments (1956): 131 4. Jaws (1975): 128.1 5. Doctor Zhivago (1965): 124.1 6. The Exorcist (1973): 110.6 7. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937): 109 8. 101 Dalmatians (1961): 100 9. Ben-Hur (1959): 98 10. The Sting (1973): 89.1 11. The Graduate (1967): 85.6 12. Fantasia (1941): 83 13. The Godfather (1972): 78.9 14. Mary Poppins (1964): 78.2 15. Grease (1978): 77 16. Thunderball (1965): 74.8 17. The Jungle Book (1967): 73.7 18. Sleeping Beauty (1959): 72.7 19. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): 70.6 20. Love Story (1970): 70 21. Pinocchio (1940): 67.4 22. Cleopatra (1963): 67.2 23. Goldfinger (1964) 66.3 24. Airport (1970): 66.1 25. American Graffiti (1973): 65.7
Top 25 ticket selling movies that came out 1977 to the present:
1. Star Wars: 178.1 million tickets sold 2. ET: The Extra Terrestrial (1982): 141.9 3. Titanic (1997): 135.6 4. The Force Awakens (2015): 108.1 5. The Empire Strikes Back (1980): 98.2 6. Avatar (2009): 97.3 7. Return of the Jedi (1983): 94.1 8. Jurassic Park (1993): 91.9 9. The Phantom Menace (1999): 90.3 10. The Lion King (1994): 89.1 11. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): 88.5 12. Jurassic World (2015): 79 13. Forrest Gump (1994): 78.6 14. Marvel's The Avengers (2012): 76.9 15. The Dark Knight (2008): 74.5 16. Ghostbusters (1984): 71.2 17: Shrek 2 (2004): 71.1 18. Spider-Man (2004): 69.5 19. Independence Day (1996): 69.3 20. Home Alone (1990): 67.7 21. Beverly Hills Cop (1984): 67.2 22. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006): 64.6 23. Batman (1989): 63 24. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): 61.6 25. Finding Nemo (2003): 61.6
Source: Box Office Mojo http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr=1&p=.htm (Set to ticket sales)
“The Coon”? Hmmm ....
Three great new movies we saw on Amazon Prime that I think cover that are “Still Mine”, “Ink”, and “Frame”.
“There were 2 Godfathers...”
What about Godfather 3?
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Wait. You know what? Never mind.
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There were 2 Godfathers
No. The summer blockbuster changed the structure of the release schedule, and changed what the bosses knew about making money. But that’s not ruining. that’s just knowledge.
I think Forrest Gump (13 on the second list) is the only movie listed in that group that is a truly old school movie. Sure it has special effects but they enhance the story, they are not the story.
I had lunch with a granddaughter the other day who has never seen The Godfather films.
I strongly urged her to skip Godfather III when she decides to see them.
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Good question. The older movies would go up even higher.
Leftists ruined movies, just like everything else they touch.
In the olden days you might have one or two horror, si-fi, fantasy movies a month come through your one theater town. the rest, drama, Westerns, war, Beach blanket comedies, or epics.
Today we have six theaters near here and most often every one of them has a si-fi, fantasy, horror, superhero movie on all at once. I’m just glad they finally got away from those silly Conan type Barbarian muscle men movies.
As a result, I haven’t been to a movie theater in years. Lat time was for the remake of TRUE GRIT.
It might be more accurate to say Howard the Duck ruined Star Wars.
Let me explain: Lucas was responsible for HtD and it lost him so much money he had to sell off part of his movie making resources to Steve Jobs.
Had he not suffered that reversal he would have possibly been able to make the prequels without JarJar’s over the top digitally enabled antics.
As a result he might have avoided the comedy excess that made the character so hated.
The prequels might not have been as stunning visually but it’s likely Lucas’ vision wouldn’t have been as influenced by JarJar hate.
Had the prequels been well received he might have been able to build a coherent story line into the last movies and not sold to Disney.
That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have, at some point, nuked the fridge (for when jumping the shark doesn’t suck nearly enough) but it would have been all Lucas.
Thanks for pointing that out. The Robe (1953), 65.5 million tickets is #25.
Plots and character development have been replaced by special effects. I watch more and more old movies. Hollywood hs run out of ideas, which is why comic books are popular.
Great post, Edith - I meam Edna.
I’d say it was a Jaws/Star Wars double whammy.
After Star Wars, movies and TV was flooded with outer space shows, more glitz than drama. After Terminator, the movies were flooded with rip off movies. After Conan the Barbarian rip offs filled the screens.
Now it is superheros and global warming nonsense disaster movies.
I tried to watch some such superhero movie shown on TV not long ago. I lasted about three minutes before turning the channel.
“Movies didn’t get “ruined”.”
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I think it’s more a commentary on “copycat-ism” which throws a lot of CGI at mooviegoers in place of variety of genres with interesting stories and characters that people can care about, performed with quality acting.
That’s what ruined the movies - anyone can (and pretty much does) put together a CGI-fest with interchangeable actors.
Quality stories and performances have been increasingly the been coming from independent/small productions for quite some time now.
Much discussion of effects-heavy movies fails to note that most movies have lots of special effects, even if mundane. That struck me hard when, reviewing The Truman Show, I found out that long-view shots of buildings in the background had 2-3 stories digitally added - nobody noticed, it didn’t add any particular value, yet director went thru the trouble of having the effects added. Practically every movie has such nuanced effects added nowadays.
Just because dramas, musicals, etc aren’t rubbing the viewers’ faces with special effects doesn’t mean the movies aren’t still loaded with effects.
I think that is true, but the effect is only temporary. Eventually people tire of it and move on to something else. And it is always possible that the “something else” is even worse. Like when, in music, “something else” meant Punk.
Cartoons aren’t special effects?
I heard Coon and Friends is getting a series on Netflix :).
“Eventually people tire of it and move on to something else.”
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Which they’re more likely to get from streaming services, which provide a larger variety of genres and eras.
The streamers will likely become the major innovators in TV and feature length productions. They have to be more responsive to demand.
The major film studios won’t die quick, but their business model is becoming increasingly outdated due to tech advances & options.
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