Avengers is THE best super hero movie thus far.

[rocketpig]

darthdevidem01 said:

rocketpig said:

And Episode I sold less than half as many tickets at Episode IV, despite the US population being only 220 million people in 1977 versus over 270 million in 1999.

Episode IV sold 194 million tickets to a population of 220 million. The mind reels at that number. It's unfathomable today.

On the other hand, Gone with the Wind sold 224 million tickets to a population of 130 million. *head explodes*

Episode I was lucky to sell as much as it did.

Ep IV is the true phenomenon...the best word of mouth a movie ever had and will probably ever have. 

Gone With The Wind was re-released like 11 times though...once every decade or something.

If we look at just "first runs" then I actually think Titanic is the leader in ticket sales. 

I know GwtW was re-released a ton of times and Episode IV was obviously re-released as well. Still, those numbers are mind-boggling.

Titanic wouldn't be the all-time leader, though. According to the site I found, ET sold 161 million tickets to Titanic's 121 million. ET may have seen re-releases (I honestly can't remember) but if it did, the releases were not on the scale seen with Ep IV or GwtW. Not enough to counter 40 million tickets, anyway.

Either way, The Avengers isn't going to touch any of those movies. It won't even hit the numbers seen by Ep V or VI, which are nearly tied at 100 million apiece.

A movie we're all forgetting is The Lion King, which sold 118 million tickets (compared to 78 for Avatar). I'm surprised that no one has mentioned it. That movie was crazy-popular back in 1994. I saw it two or three times in the theatre.