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Topic: Avatar is poised to top Titanic on 2/2. How long do you think it will hold?
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 02-01-2010 10:23 PM
To answer the question, I think this new record will stand for awhile. Maybe if George Lucas makes the oft-denied parts 7-8-9 of Star Wars, or if Peter Jackson ever gets his Hobbitt on, we'll see some challenge.
It really doesn't make too much sense to compare today's blockbusters with the likes of Gone with the Wind and such, because aside from the obvious inflation issues, people simply didn't have 42 different venues to see movies in back then.
In the "golden age of movies," people didn't even HEAR about movies sometimes for months after they were released. On the other hand, during that era the theatre was the ONLY place to see a film. Then add in the fact that there were way fewer people then.
In the old days it was impossible for a film to do huge amounts of dollars OR ticket sales in an opening weekend or even the first month or two, because the release patterns were so different and there were maybe just a few hundred prints working, compared to the thousands of prints on even a minor release today.
The world is just too different now to even make a "chart" for the whole entire history of movies meaningful. Maybe dividing movie history into different "eras" (same as the music industry has done) would be good. So you could say that "Avatar" is the highest grossing movie of the modern era. But it certainly hasn't sold (and won't sell) the highest number of tickets in history, despite pulling in the most dollars.
If you could rank movies solely on the number of eyeballs which have viewed them (divided by 2) then the "top ten" list would probably be far different than it is now. But it's impossible to do, since there's no way to know how many people watch a video.
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Claude S. Ayakawa
Film God
Posts: 2738
From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted 02-01-2010 10:53 PM
Mike brought up a very interesting points about the number of prints released when I was a child. Back in the forties and fifties in Hawaii, a top Hollywood film would open at the Waikiki (Waikiki #3 in later years) & the Kuhio with only one print. After these picture play a week, they are sent to the down town Honolulu theatres and play at either the Hawaii or the Princess and play during the 2nd week. After that the same print will make it's run at the neighbor theatres starting first at either the Waipahu or the Wahiawa where they will play on a Saturday or Sunday. after that the same print is sent to the Varsity, Kewalo, Kalihi, Palama, Lilihi, Pawaa (Later The Cinerama Theatre) and the Kapahulu. After the film plays on Oahu, it is shipped to the other Hawaiian islands and play for a day during the weekend. There have been times when a theatre would only get one print and would show it at two theatres very close to each other by driving every reel of film back and forth. I know this sounds crazy but they have done it. Today, they do it on two screens in the same theatre complex by interlocking a print.
-Claude
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