- By Daniel Garris (09/07/07)

It has been a long time coming, but I have finally put together a new version of the All-Time Adjusted Box Office list. As an addition to the new list, I have put together this page highlighting the process and some of my thoughts on it and the subject of ticket price inflation as a whole.

The Process

Way back in the Fall of 2000 I put together a version of an All-Time Adjusted Box Office list that pieced together information from three different sources: the well-known adjusted list maintained by the website Mr.Showbiz (which hasn't been around for some time now), my own inflation calculations based on estimates derived from old revenue (rental) data that appeared in Variety over the years, and my own inflation calculations based on actual grosses (primarily from more recent releases). However, not long after posting the list I was already somewhat unhappy with it. While I still feel it was one of the better adjusted lists out there at the time, there were also a lot of areas that needed further evaluation. In particular, I was bothered by some of the inflation adjustments that originated on the Mr. Showbiz list for films with multiple re-releases.

So during my last two years of college at UC Santa Barbara (2001 - 2003), I spent a good deal of free time going more in depth into the Variety archives, particularly to have a much better understanding of how the older films in question performed in re-releases over the years. Since that time I had made three different attempts at constructing a new version of the list, but failed to finish each time out for one reason or another. Until now.

In short, I have finally been able to construct much more accurate estimates of how much the films in question have made in their various re-releases over time by using only my own adjustment calculations. There are still a number of holes, and the fact that in most cases I am making educated gross estimates based off of revenue data (whereas actual gross splits would be preferred to revenue splits), but at the same time I can say with 100% certainty that this list now paints a far more accurate picture with regard to the effect of reissues than did its predecessor.

In addition to having much more accurate re-release data and estimates for the new list, I've also made a couple more major changes. Most importantly, I feel I have more accurate pre-1960 average ticket prices to go by thanks in part to various data from the Time online archive. This older data combined with a new understanding on my part of a National Amusement Tax that was part of the Revenue Act of 1943 (which wasn't actually established until Feb. 25, 1944), has led to higher ticket price estimates on my end for the 1944 - 1950 period (and thus lower adjustment figures for much of the time period in question). According to NATO (National Association of Theatre Owners), the 1954 ticket price leveled back down to $0.49, which also happens to be the same year the National Amusement Tax was repealed via the Excise Tax Reduction Act of 1954 (Mar. 31, 1954). I think it is quite possible that lower ticket price estimates out there for the time period do not take the Amusement Tax into account. I have also used year-end CPI-U averages to help fill in some of the holes that still remain. With all of that said, I still hope to have even more accurate average ticket price data/estimates for the next version of this list.

Another important change this time around is in the way I have gone about making my gross estimates for older films without widely reported "actual" grosses (I put actual in quotes because the more and more I look at many of the older grosses we do have compared to their revenue data, the more and more I think many of the grosses are actually more like "official estimates" in their own right). In making estimated grosses this time around, I have tried to use revenue (rental) to gross ratios that are more in line with the more comprehensive data that we do have for films of their time period. For example, the revenue figure for films in the late 1970s often represented 55% - 65% of the actual gross, while the figure was closer to 45% in the 1960s. In the pervious version of the list, I tended to (but not always) use ratios that were more in line with one another regardless of the time period they were released in.

I've also risen the estimated revenue % of the gross up a bit for films from the early 1940s and mid to late 1950s, in part because I think the ratios I was using before were simply too low (the low ratios were based largely on the Mr. Showbiz list using very low revenue to gross ratios for most older films). However, I have made an exception for films released from 1944 - 1953 (my assumption being that the lower ratios make sense during those years if at least part of the box office take being taxed as part of the Amusement Tax was taken from the distributors' end), and for films with especially low revenue to gross ratios (in such cases, I have tended to use new figures in the 40% - 43% range). In most cases, this only means a change of $0.5 m - $2.0 m or so with regard to my previous estimated grosses, but $0.5 m - $2.0 m also means a very measurable difference when talking 1945 dollars. In total, my current gross estimates make up roughly 19% of the list as a whole.

Lastly, I have decided to round the adjusted grosses to the nearest 1/2 million this time around. I have chosen to do so to help emphasize the estimated component that is part of the process in general.


Now that I have highlighted some of the steps I took in creating the new list, I'd like to mention some of the problems we must consider with the list (as well as any other ticket price inflation based adjusted list), while also discussing certain films that illustrate such problems. Before going any further, let me first say that I am only trying to highlight some of these problems, and am by no means an expert in most of the following areas.

Problems and Examples

- Films do not always fall in line with the average ticket prices at the time of their release

This is still true today, as films aimed at children are at a disadvantage because they sell more matinee priced tickets, while films that appeal more to adults and older teens are often helped by evening ticket prices that are usually higher than the year-end average ticket prices. But going back in time, there was also the fairly common practice of certain films (usually the larger grossing ones) charging higher ticket prices than the average at the time of their release. One such aspect of the practice, commonly known as a "road-show," was the act of charging very high ticket prices for a highly anticipated film while it played in its initial limited release in selected high-end theaters. The practice went all the way back to the time of D.W. Griffith, and in the 1920s, films using the practice were referred to as "$2 pictures." The roadshow phenomenon lasted off and on all the way until the early 1970s.

Another related aspect are specific theaters that charged more than the average ticket price. This was a common practice in the 1950s with the establishment of theaters with large-screen formats. One of the more notable examples is Cinerama and its films, especially the earlier 1950s ones. While Cinerama wasn't the only large-screen format to charge more, it is my understanding that they charged MUCH more than average for tickets to their films (a news article from the period re-posted on a current Cinerama history site - http://cinerama.topcities.com - places the average Cinerama ticket at $1.89 at a time when the average national ticket price was roughly $0.55). For this reason, I have decided not to include three earlier Cinerama releases on the list that would easily qualify if compared to the national ticket price averages at the time of their respective releases: This Is Cinerama (1952), Cinerama Holiday (1955) & Seven Wonders of The World (1956). At the same time, it is also important to remember that all three films made a tremendous amount at the box office for their day.

In addition to those three films, there is also the matter of more traditional later films that played in Cinerama engagements while also having wider traditional releases: How the West Was Won (1963), It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (1963) & 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Because I have no idea of what the splits between Cinerama and traditional admissions would have been (and am not sure I ever will), I have not made any additional adjustments to the films in question. With that said, it is safe to say that the listed adjusted figures for all three films are inflated to some extent. More recently, certain blockbusters of today have tried similar practices with simultaneous IMAX releases. But I have not attempted to make any further adjustments to such films either and or any other road-show or higher-priced engagements, with one exception, the initial release of Gone with the Wind.

I am convinced one could write an entire book on the box office lifespan of Gone with the Wind. Without trying to get into too much detail, Gone with the Wind made a good portion of the money from its initial 1939 release from its initial road-shows. But I don't have an idea of what the exact breakdown of road-show admissions would be compared to the traditional priced admissions. This makes the adjustment of the initial run extremely problematic. I have ended up taking a bit of a middle ground approach on it, using a figure of $0.49. That is roughly 50% higher than the average ticket price in 1940 and also equals the ticket price data/estimates I am using for the years of Gone With the Wind's first two reissues, 1947 & 1954. At the same time, it is significantly less than the reported road-show prices of the time (in Feb. of 1940 Time reported anywhere from $0.75 to $2.20). My gut feeling is that the average ticket price for all admissions in the initial run fell somewhere higher than $0.49, but at the same time, I also don't want to over-adjust too harshly on the road-show component while not adjusting it at all for any of the other road-shows over the years (such as say Around the World in 80 Days, Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines or any of the countless others).

- In the past, films played longer than they do now, sometimes for several years straight

Although they sometimes had few traditional re-releases, some of the largest films of all time played for years in their initial releases. Two of the more famous examples are The Sound of Music & The Ten Commandments. I have not tried to break down the yearly grosses of such films, and I'm not sure that the yearly breakdowns of the time were precise enough to try to (year-end revenue figures were often only estimates that were updated with more accurate figures in time). With this in mind, this serves as another natural source of inflation for older films, as I have only used the initial average ticket price over a film's entire initial run.

In an extension of this factor, there are also three films, which in all likelihood belong on this list, that I have not included because they played for such extended periods of time that I am simply not comfortable in trying to determine an adjusted figure in each case: the midnight cult-classic, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), the early IMAX short, To Fly! (1976), and the exploitation road-show release, Mom and Dad (1945).

- What constitutes a reissue/re-release?

For my purposes, I have split the way in which I look at reissues. For anything released roughly 1980 and later, I am counting anything released both after the end of the initial release and after the initial year of release as a reissue. For older films, roughly 1980 and before (though there are some exceptions, such as Star Wars), I am only looking at reissues that are at least a few years apart from the initial release and one another. The data I have for break-downs of revenues over time simply isn't comprehensive enough to go deeper, and as was just mentioned, in the past larger films often played up to several years in their initial releases anyway.

- What about films released at the end of the calendar year?

For the most part, I have decided to count all grosses towards their initial year of release, as long as I don't have data indicating that the initial run itself ended at some point before a reissue the following year. For more recent releases, I could get into more detailed splits for December releases (i.e. Titanic), but I have decided not to in order to keep a more level playing field with year-end releases from years ago where I don't have the necessary data to make such breakdowns (i.e. Rocky).

However, in instances where I do know that the film in question did not open in wide release until the following calendar year (i.e. Duel in the Sun), I have decided to use the following year's ticket price for the inflation adjustment, while using the initial's year's price for the small % of the gross earned before the end of the calendar year (if that gross is avaliable). This is an area I would like to improve in the next version of this list, as with further research I do think it will be possible to gather more data on older year-end releases that didn't open wide until the following year.

- Why make new estimates for films with widely reported grosses?

In the comparisons between revenue data and the official grosses we do have, things pretty much tend to make sense. However, there are a few instances where things just don't seem to add up. This time around, I have decided to make and use my own estimates for 5 older films with commonly cited grosses: Pinocchio, Fantasia, Psycho, Rear Window & The Bridge on the River Kwai.

In the case of the grosses for the two Disney releases, the revenue % of the gross seemed quite high in comparison to most other older Disney releases of the past (which tend to be on the low side - I'm not really sure why that is, though perhaps all of the re-issues over the years have at least something to do with it). In making my estimated grosses for each, the revenue % of the grosses are still high for older Disney releases, just not quite as high. On a side note, despite using slightly higher gross estimates for both Pinocchio & Fantasia, both films (but especially Fantasia) adjust much lower with my calculations compared the adjusted figures originally listed on the old Mr. Showbiz list. After going through this entire process, the adjusted figures for many of the older Disney films on the Mr. Showbiz list feel extremely sketchy, with their figures for Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book & 101 Dalmatians (1961) also being extremely high.

As for the two Hitchcock films, I think the reported grosses are too high in comparison to the revenue data, especially in the case of Psycho. While it's always possible that the revenue data could be off in both cases, I find it likelier that the earlier data is correct. Furthermore in the case of Psycho, back in 1998 at the time of the remake, EW reported that the original film grossed $24 million (I have no idea what the source of that data was). Though I didn't originally intend it to be, my $28 million estimate splits the difference between that $24 million figure and the widely reported $32 million figure. In the case of Rear Window, my gross adjustment is a much more minor one. However, my adjusted figure for the film is much lower than the figure from the Mr. Showbiz list. In all likelihood, the film's sizeable (at least in non-adjusted terms) 1983 reissue wasn't factored into the adjustment there.

Lastly, there is The Bridge on the River Kwai, which I actually used my own estimate for back on the previous version of this list. Again, when having to choose between the earlier revenue figure and the later reported gross, I feel more comfortable with the earlier figure in most instances, especially as the suggested revenue % of 63% in this case seems way too high in comparison to other films from the time period.


In closing, I'd like to say that I hope you find the new adjusted list and my thoughts on the subject useful. I've put countless hours into the list and am happy to finally have something to show for it. But at the same time, I'd still like to echo what I said about the last adjusted list back in 2000:

“Please keep in mind that this list, like any other inflation adjusted list, can never really be 100% accurate for a number of various reasons.”

Both for some of the reasons I have highlighted here and for some of the reasons I have not: population changes, general inflation, new distribution methods and markets, changing tastes over time, etc, etc, etc.

And therefore I think the list better serves as an indication of what films were seen by large audiences over time rather than as a concrete comparison between films set in stone.