| Auron said: On a side note, the Chinese government is pulling Avatar from theatres due to the fact that the Chinese government displaces native people all the time and the Avatar story hits a little too close to home. Avatar in China has been the biggest movie there grossing ~80 million. Source CNN news. Oh yea, the official Chinese response is that they are pulling the movie to make room for a documentary on Confuscious. |
Not entirely accurate.
The distributor of movies in China is state-run. A native Chinese movie, Confucious is releasing next week. They are pulling all 2D theaters in support of this movie, as its supposed to be huge like Red Clif 2. The 3D theaters are still going to play Avatar.
Such a shame, too, because if it had 2D support in China still (at a comparable rate to Avatar in other nations), it'd top $100m USD in China by the end of this weekend.
Also, the funny thing about listing movies for inflation don't take a lot of things into account such as:
- DVD sales
- TV royalties
- Merchandising agreements
- Video rentals
Things that GWTW never had. Revenue makes the most sense, because your trying to compare similar dollar grosses. Also of note is how crappy the theater industry was when GWTW or Star Wars came out. When they came out, there were no equals for years. GWTW made its inflation-adjusted $1.4 billion over a two year period. Avatar has already had some theaters pulled, and when Alice in Wonderland drops, will cut off a major portion of IMAX and 3D theaters for a grand run of six months.
If you gave Avatar similar conditions to GWTW - no major competition for two years - it would easily outgross a movie like GWTW. But since the market isn't like that any more, we should use revenue.
Plus you have a major secondary market like DVD sales....I have never seen GWTW on any DVD sales chart in my life, so I would give a major bonus to modern movies for that.
If you count everything - movies, TV, merch and DVDs, then Star Wars is easily the biggest movie of all time.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
