The Shrine

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

Rank: 0015
Domestic: $377.1
Overseas: $410.5
Total: $787.6

Not too bad. It fell short of Phantom Menace by 150 million though..

Yes, because sales figures matter.

No shit sherlock. That is the topic of this thread.

SineSwiper wrote:Yes, because sales figures matter.

No, not when it comes to perceived quality (it can be argued that mass market acceptance is the purist form of quality measurement; not my definition, but it can be argued quite well), but to be the 15th all-time grossing film is pretty damned good.

Believe it or not, what blows my mind is that everyone will play up sales figues, but no one ever goes by number of tickets sold, which is in my opinion a WAAAAY better metric. Tickets in the U.S. today cost ten bucks each (at least at theater chains in L.A.), but when E.T. came out they were like four. I'm aware that the movie industry loves to be able to say "another record-setting weekend", but come on! With inflation, you're supposed to be able to break the world record for an opening weekend every year! But no one ever seems to have a figure for individual tickets sold.

When I took a film class as an undergrad, my professor talked about sales vs. tickets sold. The point he made is that over the past decade or so, ticket sales have actually remained pretty constant, despite increase in revenue.

Mental wrote:Believe it or not, what blows my mind is that everyone will play up sales figues, but no one ever goes by number of tickets sold, which is in my opinion a WAAAAY better metric. Tickets in the U.S. today cost ten bucks each (at least at theater chains in L.A.), but when E.T. came out they were like four. I'm aware that the movie industry loves to be able to say "another record-setting weekend", but come on! With inflation, you're supposed to be able to break the world record for an opening weekend every year! But no one ever seems to have a figure for individual tickets sold.

By that argument, Titanic is the best film since it sold the most tickets ever with Wizard of Oz and ET behind it.

Don't forget, nowadays, there are so many more forms of entertainment to take the dollar away, so even though the tickets are more, there's way more competition

Yeah, but do you have proof, Zeus? Do you have the ticket sales for Titanic vs. Wizard of Oz, etc.?

Zeus wrote:

Mental wrote:Believe it or not, what blows my mind is that everyone will play up sales figues, but no one ever goes by number of tickets sold, which is in my opinion a WAAAAY better metric. Tickets in the U.S. today cost ten bucks each (at least at theater chains in L.A.), but when E.T. came out they were like four. I'm aware that the movie industry loves to be able to say "another record-setting weekend", but come on! With inflation, you're supposed to be able to break the world record for an opening weekend every year! But no one ever seems to have a figure for individual tickets sold.

By that argument, Titanic is the best film since it sold the most tickets ever with Wizard of Oz and ET behind it.

Don't forget, nowadays, there are so many more forms of entertainment to take the dollar away, so even though the tickets are more, there's way more competition

Oh, I don't think it makes it the best film ever made, just the most popular. But even if you go by only numbers of tickets sold, the world's population's still been increasing, so while it's a better comparison of popularity, if you're putting them in competition you have to give Titanic an edge due to the extra billion people in the world since E.T. was out. The Wizard of Oz ought to have its figure doubled!

Anyway, I think metrics like this are interesting but not as big a deal as people make them out to be.

Mental wrote:Believe it or not, what blows my mind is that everyone will play up sales figues, but no one ever goes by number of tickets sold, which is in my opinion a WAAAAY better metric. Tickets in the U.S. today cost ten bucks each (at least at theater chains in L.A.), but when E.T. came out they were like four. I'm aware that the movie industry loves to be able to say "another record-setting weekend", but come on! With inflation, you're supposed to be able to break the world record for an opening weekend every year! But no one ever seems to have a figure for individual tickets sold.

Yep. Add to that the fact that there were thousands fewer theatres when ET came out, you start to realize just how huge cultural hits like ET and the OT really were back in there day. You see people lined up around the block on opening night for Star Wars these days, but you don't see them lined up around the block a month after the release like you did back in the '70s.

SineSwiper wrote:Yeah, but do you have proof, Zeus? Do you have the ticket sales for Titanic vs. Wizard of Oz, etc.?

If you insist, I'll dig it out when I have time. I heard it on the news back when Titanic was still in theatres. I think it passed it when it hit $500 million or so (hit $600 domestically). I'm sure it's around somewhere