Whenever a modern movie breaks some box office record you’ll inevitably read an industry professional, journalist, or fan comment about how it doesn’t match up to some old movie when “adjusting for inflation.” People seemingly note this to indicate the current movie box office numbers are not as impressive since fewer tickets were sold. What’s troubling about this qualifier is that it completely discounts all other variables that have decreased box office ticket sales.
Let’s take the original Star Wars from 1977. It made a ton of money in a time when box office smash hits could be counted on one hand (missing some fingers); in a time when there were a handful of channels on TV; in a time when the top 20 TV shows had nearly 3 times as many viewers as the top 20 in 2017; in a time when there was no Internet; in a time when video games were barely a thing.
Once Star Wars became a hit, a unique pop culture developed around it which had no competitor for several years. It was such a huge hit that it was brought back into theaters several times before its sequel came out in 1980. There was no home video version until several years later. If you wanted to see Star Wars, you had to see it in the theater. Many movies, prior to VHS rentals in the 1980s, and VHS --and later DVD-- ownership in the 1990s, were shown in theaters for years, not weeks or months like now. Therefore, the only reasonable standard by which to even compare box office sales is to count only the first-theater-run for the movies. And even then it’s not fair since it discounts all the other variables affecting box office sales.
But, since I brought Star Wars into the discussion, let’s just compare the 1977 Star Wars and the 2015 Star Wars releases. I will count the first-theater-run only for the first Star Wars versus the only theater run for 2015’s “The Force Awakens” and adjust for inflation based on 2016 (when TFA ended its run).
I’ve broken down the actual inflation rate versus ticket sales in 1977 and 1978 (its initial run) and adjusted accordingly. Below is the math behind this (again, this is based on 2016 adjustment for inflation, not 2017 since I’m counting it against the final theatrical box office take of TFA).
STAR WARS, EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE
Total Take 1977-1978: $215,537,332
Break-Down
1977 Take 195,666,111 * 3.9(inflation) = $763,097,832.9
1978 Take 19,871,221 * 3.71(inflation) = $73,722,229.91
Total FIRST RUN adjusted for inflation = 836,820,062.81
STAR WARS EPISODE VII: THE FORCE AWAKENS
Total Take 2015-2016: $936,660,090
Even when adjusting for inflation, TFA beats the original by nearly $100 million. And that’s before we account for other variables suppressing box office ticket sales in 2015-2016 and inflating them in 1977-1978. We could have some fun with that and divide by just TV viewership in 1977-1978 versus TV viewership in 2015-2016. We’d have to assign at least a 2X modifier since viewership, percentage wise, is down (by more than 2X, mind you) as people have more options. Then we could add another modifier to Internet activity in 1977-1978 versus 2015-2016… except we can’t since the Internet wasn’t even public 40 years ago. And we could include another modifier for video game use in their respective years but that’s such a ridiculous difference how could we even agree on a reasonable one? Not to mention the availability of home video options in the modern age versus then… when there was none.
All those variables make what “The Force Awakens” did even more impressive than what 1977’s Star Wars did. Perhaps we should have an “adjusted for inflation of options” to give modern movies a fair representation in this argument. Or, perhaps we could just stop trying to compare eras since they don’t apply due to huge shifts in modern culture.
All those variables make what “The Force Awakens” did even more impressive than what 1977’s Star Wars did. Perhaps we should have an “adjusted for inflation of options” to give modern movies a fair representation in this argument. Or, perhaps we could just stop trying to compare eras since they don’t apply due to huge shifts in modern culture.
It would be like saying that we have more murders in America now than in 1977 (8.8). Of course we have more murders now… there are 100 million more people. But the percentage of murders has decreased (5.3).
It’s the skewing of data that allows people to dismiss progress. You might read this and say it isn’t important. It’s just box office data. But this is a modern problem that washes over and drowns reason at all levels. If we can’t even be reasonable about a seemingly innocuous thing like box office data, then how can people be expected to be reasonable about more complex issues? We encourage a lack of critical thinking. We dismiss correlations because they don’t match up to some severity we’ve attached to other numbers, then dismiss those more “important” numbers whenever it suits us because we’ve become used to skewing data to fit our agenda.
