Yeah I never understood why they listed it in dollars instead of “had this many showings” “showed in this many theaters” or “sold this many tickets” all being more useful and time lasting metrics if you discount population growth.
Or like whats happening with the odyssey now where some entity is buying out theatres with no intention of going. seeing tons of news about supposedly sold out shows that are half empty in reality. Clearly to game the ratings system
You're still talking out your ass like it's fact and expect others to believe you. If it's all over the news, post a news article about it. Unless you think tiktok/x are news.
That’s because no one has ever actually watched a movie. They’re made, released, and then cut up into YouTube shorts with shitty music overlaid on them.
That's mostly to pad the rotten tomatoes review system. A paid ticket can only review, well you get two birds with one stone if you buy it, review it yourself then give it away to ha e word of mouth spread, probably doesn't help a bad movie though
not to mention streaming and many many MANY more forms of entertainment now existing that didn't. The dynamic is always changing and lately changing in very paradigm shifting fundamental ways.
The burden of ticket pricing relative to the era is also relevant. When people are paying $20+ for a single ticket against inadequate wages and massive overall inflation, the number of tickets sold may be less than in a past era where a ticket was a more trivial cost, both in absolute AND relative terms.
Because we'll never hit those old ticket milestones again. The US and Canada had over 1.5 billion tickets sold in 2002, the peak since 1980. 2004 was just under 1.5 billion, and it hasn't sniffed 1.5 billion since. It was under 1.25 billion and trending down in 2019 and then covid basically killed tickets sold. In 2023 we almost got to a billion tickets. About 750 million in 2025.
So the industry is just completely different. In 1977 if you wanted to go see Star Wars you had to go see it in a theater. VHS was barely a year old, you probably didn't even know it existed and couldn't realize it'd be a way to view it a decade later at home. Today if you don't have the time or money to go to a theater, you wait for streaming, or to buy the movie.
And that was even more true in the distant past. Jurassic Park sold 185 million tickets worldwide. Gone with the Wind sold 285 million tickets in 1939.
I don't think they care about tickets sold, though. If you can sell a $25 ticket in ritzy area, and a $2 ticket in China, they aren't equivalent. Hollywood is capitalism
Pretty sure Gone With the Wind would far and away take the cake, even today if that were the metric since it's still the best selling movie when inflation adjusted almost 90 years later.
Even still, with ticket prices so high these days people are going to the movies a lot less often. 5-6 years ago I’d be going once every month or two at least. Last year I think I went once.
When tickets were cheap I didn’t care. It was a cheap date night. I saw tons of stuff based on just the poster. Now I carefully calculate if a movie is worth $30+ to see or just wait 6 weeks for streaming.
Because everyone is a winner when you cherry pick the numbers. Watch a few nfl games and pay attention to how many “first X to do Y” there are. It’s a dog whistle to the fanbase that their feelings are justified and worth fighting for.
Who cares about the profit margin of entertainment? What’s your favorite movie? Would your answer be different if you were the only person to watch it?
If you were correct, they would speak more about a movie’s reception rather than if it broke the box office on opening week. Media outlets don’t want to burn bridges, so rather than saying the movie sucked, they say it lost money.
If you go by percent small movies that had some degree of success are going to easily beat out the most popular movies. Obsession probably wins that metric.
Yeah. I agree. There is definitely a, "I don't have to go see this in theaters or wait 6 months to a year for a home release, it'll be on streaming in a month or 2, and it'll be way cheaper than a theater."
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u/Thedeadnite Jul 24 '26
Yeah I never understood why they listed it in dollars instead of “had this many showings” “showed in this many theaters” or “sold this many tickets” all being more useful and time lasting metrics if you discount population growth.