HuffPost (“‘Black Panther’ Sinks ‘Titanic’ At Box Office; Twitter Goes Full Steam Ahead“):
“Black Panther” has officially sailed past “Titanic” to become third in the rankings for America’s top-grossing film of all time.
The Marvel blockbuster overtook James Cameron’s 1997 smash hit on Saturday, when it surpassed $665 million at the domestic box office. It’s now the highest-grossing title at the North American box office after 2015-s “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ($936.7 million), and 2009-s “Avatar” ($760.5 million).
These figures haven’t been adjusted for inflation. Doing that would mean “Gone With The Wind” is the highest-grossing film of all time. But we digress.
“Black Panther” has grossed $1.29 billion worldwide since its release, and people can’t stop showing love for the film.
This is followed by a collection of random tweets because, hey, journalism.
“Black Panther” was a really good movie, and something of a cultural milestone. But the digression is what interests me. It’s obviously silly to rank movies by gross dollar sales, yet we continue to do it for no apparent reason. According to Box Office Mojo, here are the top-ranked films on an inflation-adjusted basis:
DOMESTIC GROSSES
Adjusted for Ticket Price Inflation*
Note: This chart only shows the top 300 movies, regardless of sorting.
| Rank | Title (click to view) | Studio | Adjusted Gross | Unadjusted Gross | Year^ |
| 1 | Gone with the Wind | MGM | $1,854,769,700 | $198,676,459 | 1939^ |
| 2 | Star Wars | Fox | $1,635,137,900 | $460,998,007 | 1977^ |
| 3 | The Sound of Music | Fox | $1,307,373,200 | $158,671,368 | 1965 |
| 4 | E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial | Uni. | $1,302,222,800 | $435,110,554 | 1982^ |
| 5 | Titanic | Par. | $1,244,347,300 | $659,363,944 | 1997^ |
| 6 | The Ten Commandments | Par. | $1,202,580,000 | $65,500,000 | 1956 |
| 7 | Jaws | Uni. | $1,175,763,500 | $260,000,000 | 1975 |
| 8 | Doctor Zhivago | MGM | $1,139,563,500 | $111,721,910 | 1965 |
| 9 | The Exorcist | WB | $1,015,300,400 | $232,906,145 | 1973^ |
| 10 | Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | Dis. | $1,000,620,000 | $184,925,486 | 1937^ |
| 11 | Star Wars: The Force Awakens | BV | $992,496,600 | $936,662,225 | 2015 |
| 12 | 101 Dalmatians | Dis. | $917,240,400 | $144,880,014 | 1961^ |
| 13 | The Empire Strikes Back | Fox | $901,298,200 | $290,475,067 | 1980^ |
| 14 | Ben-Hur | MGM | $899,640,000 | $74,000,000 | 1959 |
| 15 | Avatar | Fox | $893,301,900 | $760,507,625 | 2009^ |
| 16 | Return of the Jedi | Fox | $863,465,400 | $309,306,177 | 1983^ |
| 17 | Jurassic Park | Uni. | $841,088,300 | $402,453,882 | 1993^ |
| 18 | Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace | Fox | $829,064,800 | $474,544,677 | 1999^ |
| 19 | The Lion King | BV | $818,364,200 | $422,783,777 | 1994^ |
| 20 | The Sting | Uni. | $818,331,400 | $156,000,000 | 1973 |
| 21 | Raiders of the Lost Ark | Par. | $812,675,900 | $248,159,971 | 1981^ |
| 22 | The Graduate | AVCO | $785,595,300 | $104,945,305 | 1967^ |
| 23 | Fantasia | Dis. | $762,339,100 | $76,408,097 | 1941^ |
| 24 | Jurassic World | Uni. | $725,671,700 | $652,270,625 | 2015 |
| 25 | The Godfather | Par. | $724,509,200 | $134,966,411 | 1972^ |
| 26 | Forrest Gump | Par. | $721,682,300 | $330,252,182 | 1994^ |
| 27 | Mary Poppins | Dis. | $717,709,100 | $102,272,727 | 1964^ |
| 28 | Grease | Par. | $706,577,200 | $188,755,690 | 1978^ |
| 29 | Marvel’s The Avengers | BV | $705,769,500 | $623,357,910 | 2012 |
| 30 | Thunderball | UA | $686,664,000 | $63,595,658 | 1965 |
| 31 | The Dark Knight | WB | $683,575,000 | $534,858,444 | 2008^ |
| 32 | The Jungle Book | Dis. | $676,381,600 | $141,843,612 | 1967^ |
| 33 | Sleeping Beauty | Dis. | $667,166,200 | $51,600,000 | 1959^ |
| 34 | Black Panther | BV | $665,630,708 | 2018 | 1959^ |
| 35 | Ghostbusters | Col. | $653,374,800 | $242,212,467 | 1984^ |
We see that “Blank Panther” is currently in the #34 spot—which is still awfully good—and likely to climb quite a bit further. On the other hand, it’s just two spots ahead of “Shrek 2.”
Even inflation adjustment doesn’t make the comparisons perfect. The advent of various film formats with different pricing schemes—3D, IMAX, and the like—mean movies like “Black Panther” are often netting more even in real dollars per moviegoer than was possible in the days of “Gone with the Wind” or even “Titanic.” Box Office Mojo tries to also normalize for ticket prices, which strikes me as problematic since the comparison is indeed supposed to be revenue rather than viewership. The latter would also be skewed towards kid-friendly movies, since child’s tickets are typically cheaper, and could also encourage promotions ($1 ticket nights) to skew the attendance records.
