Pretty interesting stuff. I enjoy the Star Wars franchise quite a bit,
but the animated Clone Wars looked so bad to me. The CGI has such a weird stylized look to it-- if anything, I wish they made it look better visually. One of my friends said he would rather see CW than Pineapple Express. Then I argued the look is so kiddy and he agreed with saying he wished it was more 'adult'. I guess it introduces Star Wars to a whole new audience though. Anyone else bothered by the look of it?

Burn George! You just got double Burned!!

it only cost like $10 million to make so its probably already profitable...

The only real reason Dark Knight will not pass Titanic is because WB will pull it in about another month so it can get ready for the dvd release this holiday season...

Just got home from Clone Wars. It wasn't bad. It wasn't great. It was just.. alright. But, it felt exactly what it was, a bunch of tv episodes edited together to make a flick. It def. has peaked my interest when they get the show up. I'll at least TiVo it.

I'd just like to say..... I called it i knew Tropic Thunder would beat out The Dark Knight :P. I WIN!!!!!!

George Lucas's quest for more money will never end. Old bastard...

I just want to thank the hardcore Star Wars fans for NOT seeing this.

Stormtrooper helmets off to you all !!!

@ Adam B. - I wasn't bothered by the look of it, it resembles Star Wars: Clone Wars (which I highly recommend) so I didn't mind at all. The animations seemed stiff and robotic at times, however. My other disappointment about the movie was I went into it expecting a war movie, like many episodes of Clone Wars in one, I knew the plot about Jabba's son, but I didn't think that was the only plot. Oh well.

George Lucas, officially a no-talent hack. :)
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.p...

As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I was seriously underwhelmed by previews for the Clone Wars toon, but still...$15.5 Million is pretty good numbers for the theatrical release of a pilot for a t.v. show that will be on next month for free... :)

@ Zinc - Welcome to America.

I saw Clone Wars this afternoon, I was actually very pleasantly surprised. I purposefully wasn't expecting too much, so it far exceeded my expectations. As long as you go in not assuming that it isn't anything other than a bunch of pulp fun, it's hard not to like it.

Not only that, but including the foreign ticket sales at the moment. The Dark Knight is at $800,093,000!


O_O

>>That’s right, The Dark Knight has just overtaken Star Wars to become the second highest grossing film of all time (domestically). Of course, this doesn’t take inflation into account.

So what's the point of not taking inflation into account? Without doing that, the stat is absolutely meaningless.

Furthermore, it could be any easier -to- take inflation into account. Just visit http://www.westegg.com/inflation/ and type in "400" in 1977 dollars, and type in 2007 (the last year for which it has stats.) You'll find that 400 million in 1977 dollars is 1.442 billion in 2007 dollars. Which means--even if you suppose that those Star Wars dollars came in various years (1977, 1997 release, etc.), Dark Knight isn't even in the ballpark. Not that perhaps it won't be. But it's got a hell of a long way to go.

Greg: Inflation has never been taken into account when it comes to all-time financial records in almost every industry. If you considered inflation, Gone With the Wind would be the #1 film of all time, probably never to be beaten.

>The way the industry and any other industry has always taken financial records is without inflation.

Agreed; I know you guys don't set the rules. But aren't the facts that Gone with the Wind is unlikely to be beaten, or that Dark Knight is only half-way towards beating Star Wars, much more interesting statistics than saying the Dark Knight is #2 on what amounts to a pretty meaningless measure of popularity?

Greg: We also live in very different times. Gone With the Wind was in the age of the roadshow, where a movie would play for years, traveling the country. Star Wars also came before home video, and played in some theaters for years. I think the film was rereleased in theaters 3 times before Jedi was released. We also should take into account the money made on home video, since a lot of people don't go to the movie theater anymore? Some films have made double their box office gross on DVD sales.

I think the point is that a record is a record. the amount of home runs Babe Ruth hit should not be adjusted to compete against the steroids-inflated records of today. A record is a record. It can't be adjusted for historical significance. It's a marker on a map.

Does the IMAX sales go into the Dark Knight numbers? I thought I read at somewhere they were tallied separately.

I did my part to keep Dark Knight on top, saw it twice this weekend and saw Clone Wars once. Actually, I took my son to Clone Wars so I guess it was a wash.

Peter,

Well said about the roadshow comment. People should see any film breaking these kinds of records today as impressive. Especially with the endless personal and public distractions we have today at our disposal.

@ GregM:
Here are the numbers adjusted for inflation...and yes, these figures are the closest measure of a film's actual popularity, profitability, and ultimate historical significance. The Dark Knight has been a huge success, but it's nowhere close to Gone WIth the Wind, and many others. Not yet at least...time will tell.


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

True enough that the industry was different in 1939. (What industry hasn't changed in 80 years?) But even if we take that into account, was it really that different in 1997 when Titanic came out? That movie's $600 million U.S. gross amounts to $785 million in 2007 dollars; a number that Dark Knight almost certainly won't come close to.

I'm not trying to put Dark Knight down; I thought it was an awesome movie. But the fact is that the industry doesn't tabulate the dollars this way because they think it's the most accurate way to measure a movie's popularity; they do so because it allows them to trumpet progressively lower "real" grosses as more and more impressive.

well said greg to the words right out of my mouth

I am naked, right now!

Booty sweat beat TDK...Boo Ya!!!

George Lucas' chin/neck is so fat! Why?

GregM. I would rather read you putting TDK down, then start this (who fucking cares) thread about adjusted income.

No offense , but seriously,,,,,
I Dont care,,,,

I have just one question: What does inflation mean????

I interviewed Tom Cruise about how it felt like for Tropic Thunder to be the one to dethrone The Dark Knight, but he told me to step back and f*ck my own face!

Here's to hoping that Tropic Thunder has great legs!

As for The Dark Knight, I say 525 million which is absolutely amazing even if it doesn't beat Titanic

Star Wars can suck it. They need to tally the totals from each release separately. And hey, guess what?

I can't wait to see the upcoming incarnation of the two trilogies; there's nothing better than a train wreck in 3D!

I cant believe Darth Lucas is doing Star Wars in 3D,,,,,

I have a shitty feeling about this.

okay, everyone has to stop saying "ofcourse, it is not taking inflation into account". everyone keeps saying it, and we get it already. but the list isn't going to change its name from "highest grossing movies" to "highest grossing movies where inflation is taken into account."

just stop it already, guys. and nikki finke.

except it often is. and really, if inflation isnt taken into account than the dark knight's #2 spot will fall as quickly as ticket prices rise again

The problem, when it comes down to it, is that unadjusted gross revenue is a near-useless metric. It doesn't communicate popularity of the film adequately (sure, The Dark Knight outgrossed Gone With The Wind; so did Happy Feet. What does this tell us about the popularity of these three films? Nothing.) Furthermore, it doesn't communicate much about the business success of a film; profitability, not revenue, is the pertinent number there. So why are people paying attention to grosses at all? It's the number that the studios promote. It has marketing value; its informational value is secondary at best.

GregM, I agree that in the overall scope of mankind's time on Earth, the movie BO statistics will be forever subjective on the generation, econonmic factors of the timeline, and future implant statistics.

What your point boils down to, is that we (as a culture) dont calculate the BO figures retroactivly,,,,
Got anything else !

i love how Tropic Thunder beat Dark Knight but you guys still put in the headline which movies TDK beat. Man, there's no bias there! ;)

Have we ever gotten a good answer as to why they also don't keep track of "tickets sold"? I understand keeping track of the dollars and whatnot but... what's wrong with a "tickets sold" chart?

Well, it was bound to happen. But TDK took the #1 spot for a whole month, the last movie to do that was LOTR:ROTK!
And as far as inflation goes, that isn't the only thing you have to take into account. How long the film is in theatres is also a variable, as is the internet. Today most people will see a movie once and then download it online for free.
Plus you have re-releases (Star Wars) and Oscar comebacks (Titanic). To take only inflation into account is really unfair.
To take every other variable surrounding the release, the viewers, and the time period in which it is released would be almost impossible to calculate.
So let's just stick with the list we have. TDK beat Star Wars, that's cool news.

@ StarBlazer101,

Inflation is when the value of money declines to where it takes more money to pay for a marketable object.
An example...
Say you have a class of 30 people, and you give the entire class 30 IOU notes each worth 1 candy bar at the end of the class. The IOU notes are dollars, and the candy bars are the gold in the treasury each dollar is worth.
However, let's say there are only 15 candy bars. There have been too many IOU notes given out. Well, then the value of each IOU note goes down from 1 candy bar to 1/2 a candy bar.
So let's say you decided it was worth it to trade your IOU note for a pencil during class, and your friend accepted this trade. However, seeing as there are only 15 candy bars, your friend now will only accept 2 IOU notes in order to match the original trade.

Well the same principal applies to our monetary system. We have an oversupply of money thanks to the Federal Reserve in relation to the Gold it is supposedly worth.
So now what was originally worth 1 dollar is now worth 2 dollars. This works in relation to the marketable objects in this country, and the value of the currency in other countries.
So now where a movie ticket cost 5 dollars a decade ago, now it costs 9 dollars. This is because the marketable object (viewing of movie, gas to transport movie, production of film itself) costs more to produce in relation to the declining dollar. So in order to make up for this you must pay more.

I hope that explains it well enough.

There are far too many factors to consider if one were to produce a list that's been truly adjusted for inflation. Inflation means a lot more than how much a dollar is worth. It's a cultural expression, as well.

Consider this: TDK will make 500+ million in a time when gasoline is $4/gallon, homes are being foreclosed like clockwork, and the overall US economy looks about as promising as 'Disaster Movie's Oscar aspirations.

Titanic did what it did in a time when home video wasn't seen as an option for new releases. You couldn't just 'wait for the DVD' because you would WAIT and wait and wait. TDK is going to come out in December, and a lot of peopel know that already; there are plenty of people that are simply waiting for the DVD because they don't like crowds/ticket/concession/gas prices. Titanic didn't have to deal with that on the same scale. Also, Titanic didn't have to deal with any kind of competition for what... 4 months? TDK had films coming out every week that were 'supposed' to take it down (X-Files, The Mummy, Pineapple Express, Clone Wars).

In many ways it was easier for Titanic to make its money in 1997 than it was for TDK in 2008. In many ways (ticket prices most notably) it's been easier for TDK.

Does it really matter? Not really. It's fun, but I don't think anybody really gives a crap (not like that #1 IMDb ranking - that shit reallly matters, lol).

Interesting that it accomplished this the same week as the pathetic cash grab called Clone Wars opened. I never thought a Batman movie could make 500 million Domestically. Lets face it, the 1989 BATMAN pulled in 251 million. There's no doubt, beside the fact that THE DARK KNIGHT is a great film the death of Heath Ledger gave this a life of its own, as so many more people outside the Batman crowd have paid to see it! I think it will be quite some time before we see a film go over 500 million. Thats hard to do!

Star wars is still the grandaddy of em' all...it's just a new age, that's all

Screw "A New Hope." I love the original trilogy, but the first movie is overrated, and pales to Empire, Jedi, and even Episode III. For the love of Jabba, Luke, stop whining.

Props to Dark Knight. Best comic book movie ever.

Don't worry: TDK's coming back to the top spot this weekend, folks.

to ihartsf:

I think A New Hope is far better than Episode III and ROTJ (which are still good), but it does pale next to Empire.