Avatar Becomes the Top Grossing Film of all Time Once Again

[Runa216]

Shadow1980 said:

It's hard to really do good comparisons for global box office figures, because you'd have to take into account ticket price inflation from many countries. Of course, regardless of international comparisons of ticket price inflation, said inflation in general favors Avatar as it was released a decade before Endgame. However, that does come with the caveat that Avatar had a disproportionately large portion of its gross come from 3D and IMAX/large-format screens, probably the largest such share ever for a big blockbuster.

So, we'll never know for sure which movie actually sold more tickets. That's why I wish the film industry would measure box office performance in terms of admissions, not revenues.

There are so many factors to consider when considering the 'biggest movie ever', so I stopped trying to justify one over the other. All we can really do is count the hard numbers, anything else is up for wildly disparate interpretation. 

Jaws was HUGE in its day and rightfully so...but that year there were only a fraction of the number of theaters and movies coming out. The population was lower, but more people were forced to see movies in theaters since home video wasn't as big or as common of a thing. Movies stayed in theaters longer, fewer movies were released yearly, inflation matters, access to alternative methods of seeing movies matters. 

Today, ticket prices are higher...but so many movies are released on demand at home or on streaming. 

There are so, SO many factors involved that it doesn't matter what side of the argument you're on, you're both right and wrong. 

Same with the argument of Avatar vs Avengers. One was an original movie with no prior source material, but it was also a 3D Event film with 7 academy awards nominations. One could argue those could be positive or negative traits. Endgame was handicapped son some ways, but so was Avatar in other ways. The entire argument almost always comes down to twisting the facts or picking and choosing what factors you value more that give your team the win. I stopped trying to engage in these particular debates ages ago. There is no right answer, so I don't pick a side. 

I love both movies and have them both in my top 10 of all time, so I win either way.