All-Time Worldwide Box office

[tarheel91]

mike_intellivision said:

tarheel91 said:

Cypher1980 said:
General concensus to any chart that fails to take inflation into account is that it is near meaningless.

Still good curio value.

Claiming a new Box Office smash always drags a few million more of the brain dead morons of the world into the cinema.

Any post that assumes that the only thing that changes over time when it comes to movies is inflation is near meanginless.

In other words, inflation isn't the only thing that's changed over time.  Gone with the Wind was released in a market vastly different from ours.  For every issue someone takes with Avatar, there's on that can be taken with Gone with the Wind.  There was much less to do back then in terms of entertainment.  There was no internet to torrent movies from.  Far fewer movies were released, and virtually none were released that were on the same level as Gone with the Wind for a LONG time.  I could go on.  Get the point? 

Gone with the Wind was a seminal epic, that is to be true.

But it should be noted that popular entertainment of that time period included  radio, Vaudeville (live stage acts), sporting events, and the movies -- including weekly serials.  Television eventually killed the first two and changed the second two (it took a quarter century for minor league sports to fully rebound after TV became widespread in the US).

 

Mike from Morgantown

 

I didn't say there wasn't anything to do, just far less.  Plus, doing things generally took a lot more effort.  I can entertain myself just sitting in front of a computer or TV all night.  Cars are much more widespread.  There's always something to do now if you want to have fun.

Movies dominated pop culture during that era.  Any sort of history class or book from the era will show you that.  Going down to the theater and paying a dime to see the picture show was analogous to our Saturday morning cartoons for many children of the time.