Adjusted Domestic Box Office Revenue
As Star Wars continues to break every record, we wanted to look to see if we could spot any trends when looking at adjust revenues for top grossing films. Were there periods of many of the top grossing films? Were they spread out equally throughout the years? Have blockbuster domestic revenues been declining or increasing?
The graph below is a count of Top 100 highest grossing films adjusted for ticket price inflation by rolling 5-year period (from Box Office Mojo). So what did we find?
Well, looking at the graph, we see from an absolute standpoint, there are two peaks — one in 2005 and one in 1977–78. We see a slightly smaller peak in 1965. And we see basically two major dips — one in 1951 and one in 1989 (these are the endpoints).
It doesn’t look like there’s trend up or down, but there are certainly periods where a bulk of blockbusters were released.
So what movies were released in those up and down periods? Let’s start with the peaks:
2005 (and preceding 5 years) Top Grossing:
This was the time of what we now understand to be blockbusters — big franchise movies. And what was happening during this time? Well, the US economy had yet to go bust in the mortgage-backed crisis. Money was pretty loose at this time — that may be a factor in the amount of tickets sold.
Shrek 2
Spider-Man
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Finding Nemo
Spider-Man 2
The Passion of the Christ
Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Monsters, Inc.
Shrek
The Matrix Reloaded
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Meet the Fockers
The Incredibles
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Bruce Almighty
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Rush Hour 2
Signs
1978 (and preceding 5 years) Top Grossing:
This is what we associate with the beginning of blockbuster filmmaking, but they were original films for the most part, no base on pre-existing IP like we see now. What was happening during the 1970s? Well, it was actually a time of recession and a major oil crisis.
Star Wars
Jaws
Grease
Blazing Saddles
The Towering Inferno
National Lampoon’s Animal House
Superman
Smokey and the Bandit
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Rocky
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Young Frankenstein
Earthquake
Saturday Night Fever
A Star Is Born (1976)
1965 (and preceding 5 years) Top Grossing:
These seem to be the classic big-budget studio films you hear about in legend. There was a lot happening in the US at the time — lots of political activism, the war in Vietnam, and excited over space exploration. Hard to say why more top-grossing films came out of this period, but here they were:
Cleopatra (1963)
Goldfinger
My Fair Lady
West Side Story
Lawrence of Arabia
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
And now let’s look at the troughs.
1951 (and preceding 5 years) Notable Names:
Unconquered, The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, The Egg and I, Mother Wore Tights; The Red Shoes Eagle-Lion, The Three Musketeers, Red River; Samson and Delilah, Battleground, Jolson Sings Again Sands of Iwo Jima; Cinderella, King Solomon’s Mines, All About Eve; Quo Vadis, Alice in Wonderland, Show Boat.
What was happening? Well, I guess World War II was happening and there was a recovery period after that. Perhaps the pipeline for films had been affected by the war?
1989 (and preceding 5 years) Notable Names:
Back to the Future, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Rocky IV, The Color Purple, Out Of Africa; Top Gun, “Crocodile” Dundee, Platoon, The Karate Kid, Part II; Three Men and a Baby, Fatal Attraction, Beverly Hills Cop II; Rain Man, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Coming to America, Big, Twins; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Batman, Back to the Future Part II, Look Who’s Talking.
This period of decline jumps pretty quickly back into some heavy hitters. However, the 1980s were also a time of rapid TV expansion. So perhaps there was more competition for viewership at the time?
In Conclusion
So it’s interesting that when I tallied the lists during the troughs, I recognized far fewer names. Otherwise, the names that I did recognize weren’t necessarily the typical blockbuster movies we’ve come to expect will pull in big at the box office. But those in the peaks had many films that have stayed in the canon of film. It’s hard to say exactly why there weren’t blockbuster films during those years — though perhaps we can take a guess.
Overall, we found that there seem to be times when hit films are grouped together. But there hasn’t necessarily been a trend away from these blockbusters. It seems that people are still going to the movies and helping new movies usurp old movies in the top 100.
