This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Regarding the highest grossing franchise tab- Actually Pokemon is the highest grossing Media franchise in the world,I think the tab's suitable name should be highest grossing film franchises that way it should avoid confusion. Mr TOTEM (talk) 17:29, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. All of the franchises listed are multi-media franchises, so your proposed alteration would not be factually correct. It's a table that logs films, in an article about films, I don't think it's necessary to treat readers like idiots. Betty Logan (talk) 21:15, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
There are conflicting numbers for the final gross of the original Jurassic Park film, none of which that I can find that still have $1.034 billion as the number. The Numbers lists it as $1.045 billion while box office mojo incorrectly lists it as $1.099 billion. Would like to know why the total isn’t being updated to the seemingly correct total provided by The Numbers. Zvig47 (talk) 21:00, 6 July 2022 (UTC)
So by studying the table above we can conclude the following:
We know that Jurassic Park grossed $913 million on its original release. This is widely reported everywhere. The new BOM figure and the figure for The-Numbers are anomalous. BOM is $65.5 million out, while The Numbers is $10.4 million out. To the extent that the $913 million figure is correct, these figures are wrong. We know why BOM is out (double counting is a widely reported issue) but it's not obvious why The Numbers is out by $10 million. Could it be correct? There is always that possibility but no other source I have ever come across reports JP grossing $923 million on its original release.
After the original release the new and old BOM figures are consistent with each other. However, The Number is not consistent with BOM with the 2013 and 2018 releases. It is not clear which tracker is correct here, but after the 2020 release the total for The Numbers goes down (which suggests that The Numbers has made a correction). The correction puts The Numbers $11.6 million ahead of the old BOM figure.
The total at The Numbers has not changed in 2022.
Neither data source is ideal, but if you click on the source used in the article you will see that we use the figure from the older version of BOM and add in the 2022 reissue separately. That is the best we can do now, given the problems that both sources have. Betty Logan (talk) 00:55, 7 July 2022 (UTC)
Spider-Man: No Way Home
The film's gross hasn’t changed since the end of June. Is it safe to say that the film has finished its original box office run? It’s returning to theaters in September, but I think it's safe to say the film is finished for now. Thoughts? Zvig47 (talk) 18:45, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Our last update was on July 2, which means it was most likely still playing as of last week. We won't know if it has closed until next week's updates at the earliest. There is no hurry to remove the highlighting. If the highlighting stays in place for a couple of weeks after the film has closed that isn't a problem. On the other hand if the highlighting is removed too early then editors will stop checking the gross and an update could be missed if it hasn't fully completed its run. The highlighting should only be removed once we are sure the gross has been finalised. Betty Logan (talk) 19:58, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 18 July 2022
Sorry if this was discussed before, but I just now noticed [1]Titanic's number is at $2.201b, and I checked [2]The-Numbers and it's pretty similar, is this a anomaly or a recent update that should be reflected on this page? DCF94 (talk) 14:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Add 'Thor' film series in List of Highest Grossing Film Series
With Thor: Love and Thunder, Thor franchise has surpassed Superman and Godzilla. Please add it in the list. Avengers series have a separate mention in the list despite being part of MCU. Thor should too. 171.79.102.100 (talk) 05:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Phase 4 of Marvel Cinematic Universe grossed more than Phase 1 but it’s still lower than it which means they have to replace them Ashkane616 (talk) 05:54, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Phases 1-3 are part of the "The Infinity Saga" subgroup, and Phase 4 is part of the now coined "The Multiverse Saga" (which I'd suggest be edited in), so you can't put 4 over 1 because they're from separate subgroups. DCF94 (talk) 08:33, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
Proposal for page improvement
I have a proposal, but I’d like to gauge your opinion before going through what may be a laborious task.
My basic idea is this: Convert the tables to include inflation-adjusted figures as well as a ratio column to show how many dollars were grossed for every dollar spent creating the movie. I have a demonstration page on the Wiki page for James Bond movies.
That sounds like a load of WP:Original research to me for the following reasons:
It is virtually impossible to adjust the worldwide grosses for older films, which is why we only have a top 10 adjusted in the first place, rather than a top 50. If we could extend it in a policy compliant way we would have done it already; we have the data to extend it to a top 14 but that's the limit of what we can do with inflation adjustment. Also, this article is about grosses, not profitability, which is beyond the scope of what is already a massive article.
Profitability is not possible to judge in the way you propose because it omits ancillary sales (video, TV licensing etc) and other costs such as distribution/theater rental and marketing (just look at List of box-office bombs for example). What you are suggesting is not a profitability ration (i.e. ROI) but simply a gross to budget ratio. I am not sure how meaningful that actually is.
Even if we went ahead with this idea, and were somehow able to source all the profitability data (actual ROI data), it would not be comprehensive because it would only cover high-grossing films, which don't actually tend to have high ROI ratios. As an example, take a look at the "Most Profitable Movies, Based on Return on Investment" table at https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/budgets. It lists the most profitable films but there isn't a single film on there that is on this article.
I don't have any objections in principle to an article about movie profitability, it would essentially be a sister-topic to the article we have at List of box-office bombs, but it would need to be tackled on its own terms. It would also need to be fully sourced as well. Betty Logan (talk) 20:57, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm not generally a fan of the idea of adding columns to the tables. They're fairly wide as it is and less is often more—though I will admit that the "peak" column, which is non-essential, was a good addition back in 2014. I'm opposed to these specific columns for two reasons: (1) inflation adjustments are not WP:Routine calculations, so the first column would be a lot of WP:Original research, and (2) the "profit ratio" is not a standard metric that is widely used by the sources (so we would be emphasizing aspects the sources do not, in violation of WP:PROPORTION), and it's not necessarily a meaningful one either as it doesn't take into account marketing costs (not included the budget) and other factors that could lead different movies with the same "profit ratio" to have significantly different actual profitability. TompaDompa (talk) 21:09, 5 August 2022 (UTC)
Movie profitability is a legitimate topic and probably should be covered on Wikipedia. Don't Deadline rank the most profitable films each year? I would certainly have no objections to such a page existing, provided the profit metrics were properly sourced. Betty Logan (talk) 13:38, 6 August 2022 (UTC)
It would need to take $2,050,000 at 2021 value to overtake The Exorcist. I don't think that will happen but Jaws has a decent shot at re-entering the top 10. Betty Logan (talk) 02:12, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
No, because all of the E.T. releases are adjusted from the same base year. We've added in two of Avatar's grosses which is why there is a note. Betty Logan (talk) 09:28, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
BOM is double counting the UK and Russia gross. It has not made $176 million from the recent reissue. It grossed around £470, 000 (~$600,000) last week in the UK, but the UK distributor has just added the reissue gross on to the 2021 gross, resulting in them being double counted. This is a really basic thing to get right so I don't understand why BOM keep stuffing it up. Betty Logan (talk) 23:42, 9 September 2022 (UTC)
We all know the figure at BOM is incorrect, but what is the basis for the figure that the chart is using instead? I notice it is different to the one at The Numbers too. At the very least we need to add a hidden note that explains the problem to editors and how to update the figure. Betty Logan (talk) 23:28, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
To follow on from what Luke says, obviously in a sortable chart you have to choose a hard figure, which is problematic when sources give different values. Box Office Mojo is the most comprehensive tracker and is therefore our first port of call unless we have good reasons to suspect BOM is incorrect (which does happen quite a bit incidentally). But at the moment I am not seeing a reason to defer to The Numbers in this case. Betty Logan (talk) 08:36, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
I'd say that's the most likely explanation. The new film only grossed $7.8 million in the Netherlands. Thanks for the head up 92.236.253.249. Betty Logan (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
Not done for now: The box-office totals are updated on a weekly basis when the trackers update their data. This will no doubt be implemented for Jurassic World in the next day or so. Betty Logan (talk) 14:31, 25 September 2022 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 26 September 2022
The figure for Philosopher's Stone in the Highest-grossing franchises and film series section ($1.022bn) is inconsistent with the figure given in the main list ($1.007bn) and should be corrected to what the figure is on the main list. It looks like the $1.022bn figure from Box Office Mojo is incorrectly counting (and subsequently inflating) grosses for certain countries during the 2021 re-release. AverageLogic (talk) 17:02, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Not done for now: I think you are right but it's more complicated than just inserting the older number. We need to subtract the old totals from the new totals to remove the double counting to get the "true" box-office. I will take a look at it later and try to calculate a more accurate figure. Betty Logan (talk) 17:54, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
Italy (2021): $4,410,216 (although $1,688,957 is accounted for)
I will take the Netherlands first because it is the most complicated, and I think the gross is probably correct. There is no way it grossed $4 million from a $175k opening, so this would appear to be incorrect at first glance. However, it also had a release in 2020 and BOM only has one week logged for it. In this case I can imagine it playing periodically through the pandemic months and clocking up $4 million, especially when it was easily grossing $100–200k for each weekend it played. The Numbers has its lifetime total down as $17.8 million, which matches the BOM total. So I don't think we can conclude they are incorrect.
In the case of Brazil and South Korea BOM appears to be double-counting the original release grosses. Both the reissue grosses match the full lifetime grosses for these countries at The Numbers. That comes to around $6 million, give or take. So if it's ok with everyone else I will subtract the original release gross for both of these countries, since they are almost certainly being double-counted. If anyone spots any other suspicious looking figures that you think we should look at then please list them here. Betty Logan (talk) 18:39, 26 September 2022 (UTC)
I have just trawled through two years of charts for the Netherlands and this $4 million doesn't seem to show up anywhere, so I am reversing my position on that figure. It appears to be yet another BOM error. The total appears to be about $13 million out, which would take the total down to around $1.009 billion, or thereabouts. I will implement the proposed corrections tomorrow, unless anybody wants to add further evidence. Betty Logan (talk) 00:56, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 1 October 2022
It might be complicated. While most of the notes would be fine if they were converted to a numbered noting system, the asterisk and "R" notes work better as symbols. Is it possible to combine both approaches? Ideally we would like to keep them confined to their own sections (below the tables) too rather than have them all collected at the bottom at the article. So I'm not against it but there are some practical issues that need to be ironed out. Betty Logan (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Inclusion of Venom and Morbius in Spider-Man total gross
It seems disingenuous to include Venom, Venom 2, and Morbius to boost Spider-Man to the #3 highest grossing franchise spot when Spider-Man appears in neither of these three films. By this logic, the Punish films should be included in the total gross since the character had its origin as a Spider-Man antagonist. It would make more sense, for example, to include Avengers movies in Thor's franchise gross (I'm not suggesting this).
Shouldn't the Sony Universe be separated into its own category, as has been done for the Marvel and DC cinematic universes? For the moment, their relation to Spider-Man is tenuous at best. LiamTownsend (talk) 01:08, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
WP:INUNIVERSE connections are not a factor for Wikipedia. Venom is licensed to Sony under the same IP as Spider-Man, as is Sinister Six, and I presume Morbius too. A closer analogy would be that of the Joker and Catwoman films, where Batman does not appear. They are all part of the same IP, regardless of whether Batman actually appears. No character or film is included to "boost" a franchise's ranking. The selections reflect the licensing reality of the property; the inclusion or exclusion of the character the IP is named after is entirely incidental. Betty Logan (talk) 02:15, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
That would necessitate making the phases the top-level grouping in the MCU, i.e. we would have to remove the Infinity Saga vs. Multiverse Saga distinction. I don't have any strong opinions on whether that would be an improvement or not, but that is at any rate the reason phase 1 appears above phase 4 at the moment. TompaDompa (talk) 14:05, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
Anyone pls update the collections of the film as everyone knows that it has surpassed the 1 billion mark already....but its not updated here as box office mojo hasn't updated.... someone pls correct it .....thks! Harharshit (talk) 18:25, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
We are aware that Jurassic World has passed $1 billion. The problem is we don't have an exact figure for it yet. The box-office trackers will be updated in due course and when they are we will update the gross here. Betty Logan (talk) 19:45, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
On the main list, the current cap is set at 50 films. Any thoughts on perhaps changing that to films with a mimimum $1 Billion box office? (WW/USD) I don't think that films breaking that number are going to be coming rapidly, in significant numbers, but if we find the list growing too long too quickly, we can always go back to the set cap of 50 or so entries. It's just that, while 50 is a somewhat arbitrary number chosen by us, the billion dollar b.o. return is a significant milestone in the film industry, and right now, (and especially coming out of the pandemic) I think it's worthwhile including all films that achieve that number (with the caveat that the list doesn't grow too much, too fast). Thoughts? - wolf09:28, 13 December 2022 (UTC)
I’d personally like to see every billion dollar film included, as Wolf said it’s a significant milestone in the film industry. When you think of all the thousands of films released yearly, and yet the most billion dollar films we’ve received in a year was 9. If wiki allows all the National Film Registry films to be listed on that page, I don’t see why we can’t list all the billion dollar films here. Lukejordan02 (talk) 20:22, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
I think it should be kept at fifty films. The purpose of the chart is not to track "significant milestones", it's job is to document the highest-grossing films. As TompaDompa points out, it is questionable that even a film ranked #50 meets this criteria, let alone beyond that point. If editors think $1 billion is a significantly notable threshold then it would be better to create a separate list covering that particular aspect, because at some point we would have to make the cull here regardless. And when would we make that call? If not 50, then 60? 70? Would it exceed 100? I have no doubt there would be editors who would favor a never-ending list. If a dedicated article existed we could even cut this list down a bit. Considering this article stands at over 300kb, I don't think it's a good idea to extend coverage of an aspect that isn't strictly within the scope of this article. Betty Logan (talk) 15:11, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
I concur that 50 is more than enough. We have to cut it off somewhere, and the further we go down the list, the less relevant the film is. It basically gets into "grossing-quite-a-bit films" territory, meaning films like #53 Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which was only the fifth highest-grossing film of 2017. The "High-grossing films by year" section is a good complement to the absolute list of 50. Erik (talk | contrib) (ping me)15:23, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
Actually, reading Betty's post, she (as usual) makes several good points. One significant take away is the size of this page; 316.5Kb! (and someone just cut 5.5kb off it today)... it's huuuge, and very likely to continue growing. It seems that what began as the title states, a list of highest grossing films, has grown into a comprehensive study of financing in the film industry over the last 100+ years. There was mention of creating a new page for a list of films with a billion dollar box office, but that would just be a duplication.
However, per WP: Article size, we should consider forking off some content and slimming this page down a little. If we went with the suggestion of the "list of films to make a billion dollars at the box office", then we would move the table out of this page, along with any supporting prose, and then rename this article. Or, we could move all five tables from here to a new page, and otherwise leave this article as is, with all the prose and links in place of each table directing readers to the appropriate location. This could help, considering the amount of content these tables currently hold.
While there's concern about allowing one table to grow a few entries longer than 50 over the new couple years, there's a table here with over 150+ enteies, that grows by one, if not three or four entries, enery year, and there'a a table with well over 300+ entries, and it will continue to grow as well. And then there's also the two smaller tables. Perhaps moving all five would be the best option. I'd be interested in seeing how many kb's the five are combined. But, I'm also interested to see what, if anything, any one here has to say on the matter. Goos day all - wolf09:33, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
The WP:SIZERULE for splitting articles refers to readable prose, and this article stands at 54kb of readable prose, so the article is only really at the size where we should consider it, rather than something that should be done. I think the year chart is an important component of the topic and probably shouldn't be split out. For me personally, I think the most logical section to split out (if we go down that route) would be the franchise chart, because it is essentially covering a different topic i.e. franchises and series, as opposed to individual films. A film section could be created at either List of highest-grossing media franchisesorLists of feature film series, which are actual franchise/series topics. Betty Logan (talk) 13:24, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
This is a WP:Featured list precisely because it is comprehensive. Splitting off parts so it's less comprehensive doesn't seem like a particularly good idea to me, and the specific suggestion above to remove the "High-grossing films by year" table would lead to an increase in recency bias on this page (some is inevitable due to inflation and whatnot, but we currently mitigate it and in my opinion should continue doing so). This isn't actually that big of an article; the byte size is large due to some rather hefty tables, but in terms of prose there is only about 4,000 words (this says roughly 5,400, but that appears to include the explanatory notes for the tables, of which the ones for the "High-grossing films by year" table alone account for roughly 1,000 words). Compare that to, say, Sinking of the Titanic (aWP:Featured article) which is at over 13,000 words. If we really want to reduce the size of this article in terms of bytes, my first suggestion would be to reduce the size of the tables that are longer than they need to be, i.e. the main table and the franchise table which could both do with fewer entries (say, top 25 films and top 10 franchises). In general, Wikipedia's box office coverage would benefit from focusing on a lower number of high-quality articles instead of the current approach with a large number of articles that we are unable to maintain to an acceptable standard (and which for the most part aren't particularly well-written to begin with). TompaDompa (talk) 03:18, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation. In that case, Jurassic Park still has a 2022 netherlands release ($10m) that hasn't been added, if you are including the mexico release ($270k) on top of the pre-2022 total of $1,033,928,303:
That figure is almost certainly incorrect. According to the Dutch charts it grossed $2,382 for the weekend, and somehow accumulated $10 million, which would appear to be a mathematical error. That is almost certainly the Dutch lifetime gross, including the original release. This is part of the problem with BOM—adding reissue grosses to the original run gross, and including the original run gross in the re-release gross, and thus double counting certain grosses for certain countries. The most recent film, Dominion, only grossed $8 million in the Netherlands. Betty Logan (talk) 14:57, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
With the confirmation that Jurassic World: Dominion reached the billion dollar benchmark today, we have now gotten to the point where every film on the “Top 50” scoreboard is now at the billion dollar mark.
However, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Avatar: The Way of Water are also likely to hit that billion dollar mark, at which point some of these billion dollar grossers will be booted from the list - with this in mind, should we create an additional page for films who have reached the billion dollar benchmark? 216.24.93.167 (talk) 02:42, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
Or treat the limit as a soft cap. When BP2 hits a billion, add it and have 51 films. After 3 to 5 years, we may only be at 60 films, which isn't an over-the-top amount. - wolf03:43, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
The billion dollar threshold is somewhat arbitrary. It used to be an important milestone but 9 films alone passed it in 2019. I suspect the number of billion-dollar grossers will exceed 100 by the end of the decade. It's only a matter of time before we get a billion dollar "flop". By extending the chart on this list you'd be just tracking a moving target. As for creating a list of billion dollar grossers, I have no objection in principle but would it pass notability? A decade ago there were regular lists of films that have grossed $1 billion, but are these still being written now we have 50? If it's information that readers would want to know maybe a category would suffice. Betty Logan (talk) 04:33, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
I think it’s a good idea to allow all billion dollar films to be included. If it reaches a point where there’s too many then just drop it back to 50 but for the near future at least I don’t see the problem? Honestly I don’t think we’re gonna have more than 60 anytime soon, only 3 films have done it since covid. So while 2019 did have 9 films pass a billion, I think it’s a much rarer thing now and I’m not sure if we will ever get numbers like that again, and if we do I think it wont be for a while. With the huge amount of films released every year, not to mention the increase in films going to streaming instead of a cinema release, a billion dollar is always going to be a huge milestone and it should be shown. Lukejordan02 (talk) 21:00, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
Hi! I don't know if this will be useful but I frequently look and compare this list to the one on Box Office Mojo I've come to notice a lot of potential errors with their figures that have occurred recently. Here's what I found;
Spider-Man: No Way Home - $1,971,439,845 ($54,546,201 is listed as being part of a 2022 Australian re-release)
Black Panther - $1,382,248,826 ($34,650,853 is listed as being part of a 2020 South Korean re-release)
Beauty and the Beast - $1,305,611,599 ($9,151,657 is listed as being part of a 2020 United Kingdom re-release, $32,035,379 is listed as being part of a 2021 Australian re-release)
Frozen - $1,304,550,716 ($23,042,616 is listed as being part of a 2022 Australian re-release)
Jurassic Park - $1,109,802,321 (It seems that the original release's total has been increased from $912M to $978M, $10,103,318 is also listed as being part of a 2022 Netherlands release)
Joker - $1,104,943,613 ($30,485,331 is listed as being part of a 2022 Spanish re-release)
The Lion King (1994) - $1,063,611,805 (Like Jurassic Park, it seems the original total has been increased to $858M, from what I recall the original total is supposed to be around $768M)
Zootopia - $1,042,533,689 ($18,741,794 is listed as being part of a 2022 Australian re-release)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - $1,023,842,938 (I'm not sure if this is valid or not but I brought it up before here, the total given is from a 2021 re-release comprising of Italy ($4,410,216), Netherlands ($4,328,645), United Kingdom ($1,698,396), and South Korea ($2,504,289). From my previous discussion it looked like the actual total should be $1.009bn).
It looks like the bulk of these issues are due to Box Office Mojo adding in totals for Australian re-releases, I didn't go into too much depth with the specifics of these inflated numbers but I'm guessing they're duplicated from their original gross.
There are also other box-office numbers that have lesser degrees of total inflation (<$10M), I originally wasn't going to list these but I figured I'd do it anyway;
Star Wars: The Force Awakens - $2,069,521,700 ($1,066,200 is listed as being part of a 2020 Australian re-release)
The Lion King (2019) - $1,663,250,487 ($5,020,760 is listed as being part of a 2020 United Kingdom re-release)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story - $1,058,682,142 ($1,261,755 is listed as being part of a 2022 Colombian re-release, although there was a re-release for the United States and Canada in August so this one could be valid).
I'm not 100% into the know-how of how box-office numbers work so all of this is gathered from surface-level details and my assumptions could be wrong. Regardless I do hope this helps for future reference. AverageLogic (talk) 20:13, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Change the Avatar: The Way of Water global gross from the current incorrect number 1.397 billion to the correct number, 1.379 billion. 73.252.72.107 (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
Not done: Figure is consistent with the source as of this posting. The weekend figures are only estimated at this point, but it is usual practice to update the gross using the estimates and then update with the actuals in a day or two. Any inaccuracies will only be minor and will be corrected in due course. Betty Logan (talk) 19:39, 1 January 2023 (UTC)
List of Billion Dollar Films Wiki Page
As of December 27, 2022, there are 50 films that hit billion dollars. But Avatar 2 is close to one billion, so why not do a List of Billion Dollar Films Wiki Page. 24.45.5.109 (talk) 03:10, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
Yes, once Avatar 2 hits the $1B mark, it will bump Jurassic WD off the list. Switching to a soft-cap would avoid that, the list would simply go to 51 entries instead of 50. Or there could be a "List of films that made a billion dollars at the box office", but that would be somewhat redundant. If you have other ideas, feel free to post them. This has been brought up recently at #Billion dollar films and #List cap, up above. - wolf04:22, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
I guess, as with many things, it depends. If $1bn is considered to be notable as a threshold then I’d suggest this is more natural than an arbitrary threshold of 50 (why is this not 20, 75,100, 250). If $1bn is not notable is there another threshold that is?
Whilst I’ve not done a detailed review I recall seeing a number of specific BBC news articles this year when films crossed $1bn. Whilst Wikipedia is not news, I’d suggest that, for a list article, the fact a certain limit prompts main stream news organisations to write a specific article is a good indicator of a notability cap for the list / a list.
The $1 billion milestone probably is notable, but notability pertains to whether or not there is sufficient coverage to create an article for a topic, it does not determine the coverage within the article—that depends entirely on the topic and scope of the article. An article already exists to cover such important milestones at List of fastest-grossing films. The purpose of this article is specifically to cover the topic of highest-grossing film; milestones should only be covered to the extent they are relevant to the topic, and lists should be long enough to present the relevant information but should be no longer than that or they become WP:INDISCRIMINATE.
Prior to 2012, grossing a billion dollars was synonymous with being the highest-grossing film of the year; however, these days most $1 billion grossers are not the highest-grossing film of the year. Sometimes they are not even the highest-grossing film of the season. So how long should the chart be? Well, over half the films in the top 20 were the highest-grossing film of the year, as were 13 out of the top 30. However this only extends to 16 out of the top 40, and 19 out of the top 50. In other words, once you get to about 40 films on the chart over 60% of the films on the chart have nothing to do with the subject of the article. In addition, in the last 20 years every year (with the exception of 2020) has produced a film that has placed in the top 12 (it may well go back further than that too). So on that basis I would say the chart needs to be at least a top 20 to serve the topic, and a top 25/30 could do the job. The reason we have a top 50 is simply because it has always been that way. Betty Logan (talk) 23:07, 4 January 2023 (UTC)
Fast & Furious 7's gross is $1,515,341,399 as stated by Box Office, not $1,516,045,911, except if BOM didn't listed some re-releases other than the 2020's one. Jotzy (talk) 09:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Titanic's correction made by "Box Office Mojo"
Recently Box Office Mojo corrected Titanic's gross (deleting the double-counting for what i see) making the gross being $2,194,690,964Jotzy (talk) 17:45, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, have you tried contacting BOM, either for this, or at any other time in the past? - wolf21:00, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes, we even have a liaison page at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Film/Film_finance_task_force#Box_Office_Mojo. They are fully aware of the problem and we list the mistakes at the project page so they can be fixed. Some are fixed within days, others drag on for months. Apparently there is a problem with the algorithm because not all international distributors distinguish between the release and the overall running total, so sometimes grosses are double-counted. Box Office Mojo never used to have this problem so I don't know why they can't fix it. They charge for premium access now, and I would never pay for a service this piss poor. Betty Logan (talk) 04:17, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Spider-Man: No Way Home gross
There seems to be something very odd going on with the Spider-Man:No Way Home grosses at Box Office Mojo. Here is how they have changed over the last few months:
The domestic gross seems to be fine, but there are two problems with the overseas gross: i) the foreign gross for the re-release seems to keep going up and down (it seems to be completely random); ii) the foreign gross for the original release seem to randomly jump from $1.096 billion to $1.102 billion (an increase of $6 million).
In the case of original overseas gross I am trying to work out if the extra $6 million is a correction or if BOM are double counting. Since the total worldwide figure is approximately $6 million higher than the figure at The Numbers I suspect BOM are double-counting. I am thinking perhaps that we should go with the gross at The Numbers for No Way Home because BOM doesn't seem to have a clue! Betty Logan (talk) 04:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
For what i see BOM adjust its total very often (like LotR: The Return of the King; Shrek 2; Titanic) so i think that's is simply one of that case.
I don't think would be good to use "The Numbers" total for "No Way Home" because would be the only film in the list and would make this list "Irrelevant" in a statistic point of view because wouldn't be coherent.
I know that with Demon Slayer: Mugen Train was made the same thing, but that was a different case, when BOM simply stop the gross despite the film still being in theatre in China, Japan etc. so we have only one relevant source: The Numbers. In this case, seems simplt that the two sites have made different estimates and we can't consider one estimate better than another, and since all the charts use BOM, we must use BOM in my opinion. Jotzy (talk) 17:51, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
Well the old figure for Box Office Mojo (before the original release gross inexplicably jumps by $6 million) with the re-releases added in would come to $814,115,070 + $1,096,439,073 + $291,925 = $1,910,846,068, so The Numbers is much closer to the correct figure in this case. Alternatively we can calculate the total from the archived version, as I have done above. Something needs to be done because at the moment the current figure is almost certainly double-counting. Betty Logan (talk) 18:25, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
It appears we are all wrong. Deadline notes that "there has been some confusion over the final No Way Home worldwide total, but we are told it is indeed $1.921B (whereas some charts have it at $1,916.3M)". I note that correlates with BOM's Oct 26 lifetime total. I'm thinking of using the Oct 26 figure and adding both the archived version of BOM and Deadline as a source with a note. Any thoughts? I think it will be a serviceable hack until BOM actually applies a proper fix. Betty Logan (talk) 19:38, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
Yeah I think it probably is. It can't be a coincidence that the figure at BOM has suddenly changed to match the Deadline figure. Betty Logan (talk) 10:54, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
Star Wars TFA
User:Luke Skywalker 96 why did you revert my edit without any proper explanation? The source clearly mentions the grosses from all re-releases. Simply leaving comments like it's an issue from the site isn't going to make anyone understand what the issue is. You should explain it either in the summary or on the talk page when you revert to avoid edit warring. It's against WP:UNRESPONSIVE and WP:CAUTIOUS. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 20:54, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
That was self-explanatory User:Luke Stark 96. I removed it as currently playing. Please avoid blaming others to deflect. I'm not asking you to explain every single edit or removal. Only controversial ones that can't be understood on their own. And I do try leaving edit summary every time when I know that there can be an edit war over some edit. You've done this multiple times, including while reverting the same edit you talk about [5]. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 22:05, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Not to mention that time it was also me who tried finding out the root cause by asking you, rather than you addressing it yourself [6]. So saying "you did this in the past too" isn't an excuse to avoid making a proper explanation for edits that can't be explained on their own. You aren't a new editor. I've tried improving my methods. But it is clear you aren't doing so. Either leave a proper edit summary, and if a summary can't help explain use a talk page instead. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 22:17, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying to be more careful too, your edit was not self-explanatory, you remove the note with the summary "Top Gun has been removed from theatres", but that was wrong, as the note says "DO NOT REMOVE THE HIGHLIGHTING. The accompanying source clearly shows Top Gun is still playing in several countries", so my summary "ignored note" was self-explanatory, not your edit with removal of content (a note). Next time I will say "please read the hidden note", bye and have a nice day--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 22:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Your note said it is still playing. I removed the fact that it was still playing. It's pretty self-explanatory to anyone that I assumed it wasn't playing. That summary of yours therefore wasn't enough to address it. If you make a claim that it is playing, you must back it up with a source. Which you did not bother to even once until I asked you. Again instead of blaming others, please accept your own fault.Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 22:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I didn't write that note, another user did, and you ignored that, and you also ignored and didn't check the source already linked in the table, next time check the source before, that is self-explanatory for sure--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 22:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Whoever wrote it is redundant, you restored it so it's still your responsibility to explain. And your edit summary was also false because I did not "ignore the note". I presumed it had stopped playing, especially given that Christmas had already long passed (which the note says it was playing on). Why do you expect readers to minutely examine a source to check where it's still playing? The burden is yours to present with a clear proof: "The cited source must clearly support the material as presented in the article." I suggest you stop expecting everyone else to automatically understand everytime what you're doing. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 22:46, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Because the only way to know if a movie is still playing is to "minutely examine a source", this source, this is what me and other editors do, and that was and is the proof that the movie is still playing, did you check the source before your edit? Or did you just assume, in your opinion, that the movie was not playing anymore?--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 22:53, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Yes I did check it. I didn't see where it said it is still playing. I checked a few countries at random too. Didn't check Australia which was my fault. Do you really expect readers to go and check which countries it's playing in? Was it really that hard for you to simply source this link on the page instead [7]?Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 23:01, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
There is the note, that says "Australia", and there is the source, you click on Australia and there it is, you don't need to check every country, it is already written in which country the movie is still playing, so I didn't explain properly to you, but you didn't check properly the note and the source already linked near the movie--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 23:09, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
The note stated that it was playing on Christmas Day, but since it had long passed and it hadn't updated its gross I presumed it had stopped playing. If I provided a book as a source, that's not proper sourcing. I must also provide the page. That's "clear" and "present explicitly in the source". You didn't do any of that, you just hoped readers would try to click on other sections to see whether it's still playing. Please stop expecting people to do what you should do yourselves. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 23:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
Maybe you should put a link directly to a page next time that epxlicitly shows that a film is playing, instead of expecting others to find out for themselves by clicking around? Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 23:31, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
@Luke Stark 96: If another editor feels an edit summary wasn't clear/adequate then we have to have accept that in good grace. Clarity is subjective, at the end of the day, and depends on how involved somebody is in the article.
@Roman Reigns Fanboy: The article is regularly updated by a core group of editors and they keep on top of things like the highlighting, whether a film is still playing or not, so I wouldn't worry about it. Top Gun is apparently still playing in Australia, so the film will remain highlighted until it fully closes. BOM may not update the worldwide gross again, but keeping the films highlighted helps us keep on top of what we need to keep checking. Whilst I appreciate you updated the article in good faith, there is a long-running issue with Box Office Mojo (I appreciate there is no good reason for you to be aware of the issue and you were just being diligent). The most recent problem is that all the Disney grosses seem to have changed by a couple of million. I haven't examined the problem in detail yet, but it does like an error rather than update; for example, the 2021 reissue gross in Australia for The Force Awakens is highly irregular: [8].
@Luke Stark 96: Are you able to list here all the films that have had an anomalous update in the last few days? We can't expect Wikipedia editors to be familiar with the inner-workings of Box Office Mojo, so we need to add hidden notes and archived sources to restore the integrity of the grosses. Betty Logan (talk) 11:17, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
Both Box Office Mojo and The Numbers give a different gross for Titanic. Does anyone know why? That said The Numbers does have a lesser rate of error than BOM on average and in the case of Titanic, doesn't make mistakes in its calculations like BOM, though it's not as detailed regarding grosses in specific countries. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 01:38, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
Generally Box Office Mojo is more accurate than The Numbers, except for films that have had re-releases, because BOM double-counts some of the grosses. In the specific case of Titanic it grossed $1,843 million on its initial release and $344 million from its 3D release in 2012, bringing the total to $2,187 million. Neither of these figures are disputed and you can find alternative sources for them. This was recognised by The Numbers in September 2014 (more or less, it's roughly $1 million out, which isn't that strange because The Numbers tends to stop tracking before BOM), but it suddenly added $20 million to the gross later that month without explanation. This figure is emphatically wrong. BOM had the correct figure prior to the 2020 reissue. After the 2020 reissue they wrongly added $7 million to the original release. By the end of 2021 they had corrected corrected the original gross, but wrongly added $7 million to both the 2012 and 2017 reissues. In the last few weeks they have corrected the 2017 reissue but the 2012 reissue is still wrong. Currently both BOM and The Numbers have the wrong gross, but BOM had the correct gross before the 2020 reissue so we currently used an archived version as source in the list. It's not ideal, in fact it is incredibly frustrating, and I hope that BOM correct the gross when Titanic gets re-released next week. Betty Logan (talk) 03:16, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
I see. It stopping tracking earlier must also be why so many films have lower grosses, although it does have a more precise international gross and often doesn't just round to 0s. Roman Reigns Fanboy (talk) 04:22, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
There is no rhyme nor reason to BOM's rounding: Top Gun is rounded to $1 million, Jurassic World Dominion to $1,000, and Spider-Man: No Way Home to the exact dollar. That only really affects precision though, not accuracy i.e. we know that 768,843,144 is essentially the same number as 769,000,000, and we understand why the numbers are different. At the moment both sources have an accuracy problem, and unfortunately we have no credible alternatives. Betty Logan (talk) 05:41, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
A note for Titanic?
As has been discussed before numerous times on here, Box Office Mojo has had an outstanding issue regarding Titanic's 2012 re-release. The figure for Box Office Mojo is $350,449,521, while this article uses the original $343,550,770 figure, as a result the film currently has a different ranked position here than on Box Office Mojo's all-time list; here Avatar 2 is listed as the third-highest grosser with Titanic ranked fourth, on BOM it's the opposite situation.
It's set in stone that the $343.6M figure is correct as the $6.9M was added on inexplicably years ago (it doesn't seem like it's going away anytime soon), and I think a note on this, like for Frozen, F8, and HP1, would help settle confusion with the discrepancy between this list and the list cited, and possible good faith edits from unknowing users. AverageLogic (talk) 21:25, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
I think you are right. It is the early hours here and I am off to bed right now, but I will add one tomorrow if I'm not beaten to it. Betty Logan (talk) 22:15, 13 February 2023 (UTC) Done
Avatar vs Top Gun
There's an argument about if Way Of Water or Maverick made more dosh. Couple edits have already been done, so take it here before it becomes edit war. One user says TGM should be above cos BoxOfficeMojo is otherwise used, and I get that. But the other is using The Hollywood Reporter, which is more reliable. So I think Avatar 2 should be above.
I am willing to just wait until Box Office Mojo updates their numbers. I am not too impatient on this particular matter. I can wait. Cardei012597 (talk) 18:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Sorry for the almost edit war, I didn't mean to be rude, but usually we use BOM here, and sometimes also The Numbers. In the main table, for Avatar 2, we use both, and now The Numbers updated the gross and I have just updated the page--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
Is someone able to edit the list to show that Top Gun is no longer running? It's gross hasn't changed in months, yet it is still listed as being in theatres when it clearly isn't. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MegaSolipsist (talk • contribs) 23:27, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
can make Highest-grossing franchises table sortable?
Please edit to list Highest-grossing films, because in site "box office mojo" written Titanic: $2,226,034,860 and Avatar: The Way of Water: $2,219,362,826 (Alinmehr) 12:10, 19 February 2023 (UTC)
For months its collections have not been changed ...so why its denoting still running...i think it needs to be changed...pls give ur views. Harharshit (talk) 12:15, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
Currently both figures at Box Office Mojo and The Numbers show the film as having grossed $2,923,706,026. I don't know if this is a definitive or "correct" figure, but it is unusual that both use the exact same number, considering that for most figures in the top 50 have at least minor differences between the two sites.
It's hard to tell these days, given the number of errors both sites contain. That said, the most recent update by BOM could be a correction (BOM's problem seems to be double-counting, rather than low-balling). The figures for the original release and the special edition look right to me. Nothing stands out as incorrect, but as always with these two sites we should keep a close eye on how the figures change. Betty Logan (talk) 04:51, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 March 2023
Not done: The Disney grosses on Box Office Mojo are riddled with errors. This is explained in greater detail at WP:BOXOFFICE#Box Office Mojo. For now this article is using archived versions of BOM to source the grosses, and hopefully BOM will correct the information soon. Betty Logan (talk) 17:24, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
There is an issue with BOM grosses that have had re-releases, whereby it double-counts some of the earlier grosses. For a good example (and explanation) view the note accompanying Titanic. There is also an ongoing issue with many other Disney grosses. Spider-Man: No Way Home was recently fixed (see Talk:List_of_highest-grossing_films/Archive_19#Spider-Man:_No_Way_Home_gross) but there are many issue outstanding with other films. That said I am not sure that the Avatar gross is incorrect, because The Numbers has the same figure as BOM. Thoughts please Luke Stark 96. Betty Logan (talk) 17:36, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
That doesn't really answer my question, nor does it explain why a sources that is deemed as "riddled with errors" (i.e., unreliable) is being used. M.Bitton (talk) 17:40, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
The two links I have provided will help to answer your question. We have been grappling with the issue for quite a long time now. Some of the Disney grosses logged at BOM are factually incorrect, in that they are double-counting some of the earlier grosses in the reissue grosses (there is a full list of the affected grosses at #Issues table. The Box Office Mojo source is being used because it is generally reliable, but there are some issue with films that have had re-releases. We have an arrangement with them whereby we log the issues at the WP:BOXOFFICE page and they are addressed in time. If there were superior sources available we would transition to them, but there aren't, so we as editors are stuck in a less than ideal situation. Avatar was one of the grosses affected, but it may well be that the Avatar gross has been corrected by Box Office Mojo, so let's wait and get some more thoughts on the issue. If we are sure the gross is now correct we will happily update it. Betty Logan (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I was just a bit confused by the nature of your edit i.e. altering the source for the peak chart position. It really isn't an issue though. You might have done as a favor, because if Avatar's gross has been corrected some of the others might have been too. I fully appreciate you edited in good faith and you may well be right, we just need some time to check it over. Betty Logan (talk) 18:33, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Another user two weeks ago started a discussion about the Avatar box office: #Avatar 1's gross. There are many issues in the top 50, but maybe Avatar is not, and both sources (BOM and The Numbers) have the same gross, so for me it is ok to update Avatar--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 19:37, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
OK, it is very unlikely that both BOM and The Numbers would both incorrectly arrive at the same figure (unless one copies from the other, which doesn't seem to be the case), so I have restored the Avatar correction in the appropriate places and the relevant sourcing: [12]. @M.Bitton: Thank you for bearing with us to resolve this issue. I do hope you appreciate that given the circumstances why we needed to review the figure. Editors are updating the information in good faith, and the situation is very frustrating. I wish we could locate another source but unfortunately box-office data is difficult to come by. Betty Logan (talk) 20:54, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
I would be in favour of reducing the number of entries in that table. My preference would be 10 entries, but 20 or 15 would at least be a step in the right direction. TompaDompa (talk) 23:33, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
It was a top 20 when the article first became a featured list, and I think the balance was about right back then. I don't think being a top 25 improves the encyclopedic value of the chart so I support scaling it back. I think whatever the cut-off ultimately ends up being, it should probably be below Avatar which holds some interesting records i.e. highest average, only series where each entry has grossed 2 bil+. Betty Logan (talk) 00:06, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
I think this is a good compromise. It can always be cut back further at a later time if editors feel there is a need to do so. Betty Logan (talk) 09:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)
I personally think a Top 25 would work much better as it shows more movie franchises that are very popular, and I do not see a reason for a Top 20 instead of 25, having 20 is unnecessary. 25 franchises is fine, I see nothing wrong with that fact. Liminalspaaces (talk) 14:42, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
The popularity of a franchise is not a good reason for a giant table, there are many others popular franchise outside the top 25, like Godzilla, Iron Man, Captain America, Superman, Star Trek.... We have to increase the table to a top 30 or 40 just because it is a popular franchise? It has no sense for me, we need a top 50 for this--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 17:21, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
Captain America and Iron Man are technically part of the MCU, and Godzilla Superman and Star Trek are popular, yes, but I think top 50 movie franchises is a bit too much. I do see your point though. Liminalspaaces (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
The Avengers are also part of the MCU, but they have their own franchise in the table, and the point is that this is not the "Most pupular franchises and film series", this is the "Highest-grossing franchises and film series", and for me (and for other people) it is not necessary to have so many franchises, and of course they are popular, they made billions of dollars each, but this is just my opinion of course--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 18:06, 5 April 2023 (UTC)
I think 10 are too little and 15 is just a weird number for a list (cause then why don't we have Top 12 on the adjusted list?), 20 is a fine number as we'll be able to see up and coming franchises, because a Top 10 will almost always have the same series at the top. DCF94 (talk) 20:52, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
It would perhaps help if you told us what number you were you putting in to the inflator. Using the your inflator (which incidentally is tied to US inflation) I got $1,839,469,650 (i.e. $1.8 billion) for the original release. Applying the inflator to the whole of the pre-1982 figure I get $2,377,851,011 ($2.4 billion). Applying the inflator to the special edition gross (adjusted from 1997) yields $468,597,146. Combined, that comes to $2,846,448,157 ($2.8 billion). That is actually slightly lower than the $3.4 billion we have listed for it in the adjusted table. I am confused as to where the $8 billion comes from because it is not clear how you generated the number. Inflation adjustment isn't an exact science, different commodities rise at different rates around the world, but the Guinness figures are more or less in the right ballpark. Betty Logan (talk) 00:27, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
There are about 52 much billion dollar films in the list that they can't fit all in one so create a special wiki for billion dollar films list. 24.45.0.2 (talk) 02:26, 6 June 2023 (UTC)
It was still playing internationally as of last week. Remember, this is a global chart so you shouldn't judge release dates just off the domestic calendar. Betty Logan (talk) 09:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
Puss-in-Boots 2 is still playing in many countries. Ant-Man and the Wasp might have closed since there were no box-office reports last week as far as I can see. If there are no further updates this week I think we can then probably de-highlight it. Betty Logan (talk) 08:34, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
The super Mario Bros movie has made 1.351 billion dollars in the box office
But now it said 1.343 billion dollars.
Is someone messing the the wikipedia? 76.31.47.131 (talk) 13:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
Please add distributors to Highest-grossing films list to know what films are distributed by, like [each year] in film articles. Akhil K. (talk) 04:23, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
Snow white had a re release the a couple of weeks ago all I could find is £1.8 million form the uk[1] witch is about $2.2 million according to EX currency converter [2]
it one of several Disney films to be re released along with
Back in December, I said: This is a WP:Featured list precisely because it is comprehensive. Splitting off parts so it's less comprehensive doesn't seem like a particularly good idea to me [...] This isn't actually that big of an article; the byte size is large due to some rather hefty tables, but in terms of prose there is only about 4,000 words [...] Compare that to, say, Sinking of the Titanic (aWP:Featured article) which is at over 13,000 words. If we really want to reduce the size of this article in terms of bytes, my first suggestion would be to reduce the size of the tables that are longer than they need to be, i.e. the main table and the franchise table which could both do with fewer entries (say, top 25 films and top 10 franchises). In general, Wikipedia's box office coverage would benefit from focusing on a lower number of high-quality articles instead of the current approach with a large number of articles that we are unable to maintain to an acceptable standard (and which for the most part aren't particularly well-written to begin with). The main points still apply (XTools now says roughly 3,800 words of prose).TompaDompa (talk) 00:31, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, most of the article size comes from coding, which the reader obviously does not see. As yet I don't think the readable size of the article has reached the stage where it needs to be split. There may sometimes be other reasons to consider, that might make sense. For example, there is a legitimate argument for moving the franchise table to List of highest-grossing media franchises, but I am generally against breaking up articles just for the sake of breaking them up because it makes information easier to find if it is kept together. Betty Logan (talk) 01:14, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Those captions would be incorrect. Avatar at #1, Avatar: The Way of Water at #3, and Titanic at #4 are by Cameron. Avengers: Endgame at #2 and Star Wars: The Force Awakens #5 are not. TompaDompa (talk) 19:26, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Inflation adjustment
I just saw the inflation-adjusted gross (2022 $) calculated for the movie Titanic here is $3,485,000,000.
If we use the inflation template: {{Inflation|index|value|start_year}} for all the releases individually and add the results, it returns a total value of $3,869,391,790:
Adjusted gross for original 1997 release: $3,498,740,900 +
Adjusted gross for 2012 3D release: $455,943,013 +
Adjusted gross for 2017 re-release: $859,717 +
Adjusted gross for 2020 re-release: $84,004 + gross of the 2023 re-release without any adjustment: $70,157,472.
I think this calculation gives a more accurate inflation-adjusted gross. So I request other users to give their opinions as well. Thanks. Cinephile4ever17:50, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
Inflation adjustments are hardly WP:Routine calculations when they are global and thus have to take into account varying levels of inflation across the world as well as currency exchange rates. That's why we defer to the sources to do the adjustments for us. If I recall correctly, the current approach is a sort of compromise between refraining from doing the adjustments ourselves (because of WP:Original research concerns) and not going horribly out of date if the sources don't provide updates as frequently as we would like them to. I am certain Betty Logan can explain this in more detail. TompaDompa (talk) 18:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
There are three problems with what you propose:
Titanic didn't gross $437 million in 2012, it grossed $345 million. This is explained in more detail at List_of_highest-grossing_films#endnote_Titanic. I should also point out that the total here doesn't include the $70 million from the 2023 reissue as yet, and will be incorporated once we get the 2023 index (so sometime next year).
It's not really clear to me which inflation index you are using, but these are worldwide grosses so you need a worldwide index. Adjusting by the US consumer price index (if that is indeed the index you are using) does not give accurate inflation adjustment (it either over-estimates or under-estimates). The IMF (International Monetary Fund) index is the only valid measure of worldwide inflation that exists to my knowledge. Guinness World Records use estimated ticket sales and then converts that to a gross, but we don't have that level of information available.
The third problem is that the methodology you propose is not possible to undertake for pre-Titanic films. How would we adjust Gone with the Wind when all we have is a lifetime total? We couldn't even do it for Star Wars. We have an adjusted chart from Guinness World Records up to 2014, and we basically just adjust everything from 2014 using the IMF index to try and keep the chart up to date.
So the three options that are available are i) stick with the IMF index (my preference); ii) restore the original Guinness chart (it's out-of-date so what's the point?); iii) scrap the chart (a shame IMO, because it does give us a long-term perspective). Betty Logan (talk) 18:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
That list is cribbed from the Wikipedia article. You can verify this by comparing Insider Monkey's top 10 to our list on the same date. The figures are identical, except for Avatar, which we didn't update until the New Year. There are many attempts out there to construct an adjusted worldwide list, but any list that has films appearing in the exact same order is most likely taken from this Wikipedia article, or the original Guinness source. Betty Logan (talk) 15:00, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
You can see the original Guinness lists in my sandbox (the lower table for 2011 and 2014 comes direct from Guinness World Records): User:Betty_Logan/Sandbox#Guinness. Guinness provides the seed, and we just scale it using the IMF's global inflation index. You can see that due to the two Avatar films, the last two Avengers films and The Force Awakens we technically have a top 15 now. Betty Logan (talk) 15:15, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
But don't you think all these inflation calculations from the Guinness source using IMF index is original research which is not allowed in Wikipedia? I do. Cinephile4ever13:55, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
If inflation adjustment were automatically considered original research then Wikipedia would not have an array of inflation adjustment templates at {{Inflation}}. Basic calculations are permitted per WP:CALC, which inflation adjustment generally falls into. If we were constructing our own list from scratch (i.e. taking historical film grosses and inflating them) and constructing a chart out of that then that would constitute original research, but all we are doing is taking a chart from a dated source and and keeping it up to date. If this was prohibited then presumably there would be no point to the inflation templates. Betty Logan (talk) 16:52, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 17 August 2023
I was looking into the issue with Box Office Mojo's double counting, and I have some doubts and questions about it. Do we know why it is happening? There's a list of issues in the archive at Talk:List of highest-grossing films/Archive 19#Issues table listing the issues, but that's different from the one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Film/Film finance task force. Also, what do "new issues", "old issues", "old + new issues" and "correct" in the first table mean? And what do the question marks in the project page represent? And in cases of double counting, how are they fixed on the page? - Rajan51 (talk) 17:27, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
The "issues table" in only for the top 50 highest-grossing films, the other list is for every issues we found, and in cases of double counting we use an archived version of the source with the correct box office--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 18:15, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Okay. I was also looking into it further, and what I understood is that "old issue" refers to double counting and "new issue" refers to difference in the original release numbers between the figures in the "Original Release" and "All Releases" pages of BOM. Is that right? Other than that, what exactly do the question marks in the list at the WikiProject table mean? And if we are using archived versions in cases of double counting, are the grosses from the rereleases being included? -Rajan51 (talk) 18:26, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
No, "old issues" and "new issues" both means issues, we made that discussion on January 2023, the "old issues" are the issues before January (from the "beginning" to December 2022), and the "new issues" are the issues we found only on January 2023. The re-release are included, for example in the "Jurassic Park (1993)" gross the 2022 re-release is included--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 18:38, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
Because we have no idea where that grosses come from, they added to the total for no reason, I think the question marks have this meaning, like "where are this money from?" or "why they double counting?". We don't know why, they (Box Office Mojo) are aware of the problem but there are still so many issues....--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 18:53, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
I think I know where some of the grosses are coming from. Box Office Mojo tracks the foreign grosses in local currencies and then converts them to USD every week, so the grosses in USD are subject to exchange rate fluctuations during the course of the run. This is why some movies end up with decreasing grosses in some countries (like F8 in Argentina or Infinity War in China). Now take Skyfall for example[14], where the double counting happens in Australia. Based on the gross from the original release and using the exchange rate at the time (roughly 1 USD = 1 AUD), the original gross is roughly A$50 million. The rerelease gross is then wrongly added to this total, and converted using the exchange rate at the time of rerelease (roughly 1USD = 1.5 AUD), which gives a gross of roughly US$33.9 million. This value is then listed as the rerelease gross instead of just the actual money it grossed during its rerelease. So in USD terms there is double counting, but the magnitude of error is not the same as the original gross. - Rajan51 (talk) 07:48, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
The double counting doesn't come from exchange rates, otherwise worldwide totals would constantly oscillate. It comes from re-releases: some foreign distributors report the lifetime gross instead of just the reissue gross, which means the original release gets counted twice, hence "double counting". Betty Logan (talk) 08:10, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, it comes from the rereleases only. I was explaining why some of the double counting numbers seem different from the original gross. Looks like I didn't phrase that properly at the beginning, my bad. As for the worldwide totals, they don't oscillate because BO Mojo only keeps updating the grosses in individual countries each week using the exchange rates. They seem to calculate international totals separately. - Rajan51 (talk) 08:38, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
Box Office Mojo used to be the gold standard of box-office tracking, but it's total shite these days. I think it is so riddled with errors that its status as a reliable source is questionable, but we don't have many other options. The Numbers is also riddled with errors, and they are appear more random than Box Office Mojo's. It's a tragedy that IMDB bought it out. Betty Logan (talk) 00:53, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think it's making money from users, because there doesn't seem to be any ads, and I doubt a lot of people pay for their subscription plan, so they don't care much about it. Besides, considering that Amazon is the one that owns it through IMDb, it probably exists just so that journalists can keep track of the box office and write reports that some movie broke some record, and they don't. And Amazon has not done a good job of maintaining sites they bought, so it's not surprising. But even then, things weren't bad before they overhauled the entire site. They kind of shot themselves in the foot with that one. And even now, the people at Box Office Mojo might tell us that they're aware of the issues and everything, but they won't do much because they don't really need to do anything. If they did, they would have already done it by now. I don't think they have enough people to do anything meaningful at this point. - Rajan51 (talk) 05:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 August 2023
I was checking the top 10 biggest office adjusted to inflation table and i don't see ben hur 1959 on the table list. in the 1959 ben hur movie initial release was $145 million.i think ben hur should be on the table.because the Wikipedia article about ben hur said it is second biggest grossing of all time adjusted to inflation.may be i am wrong to suggest that if i am wrong you can correct me .if i am right then please suggest to people who edit this article to make some corrections — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daniel oppong Asare (talk • contribs) 07:06, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
The Ben-Hur article says nothing about it being the second-biggest grosser adjusted for inflation, only that it was the second highest-grossing film at the time. Guinness World Records either deliberately omitted from their list because it didn't make the cut, or they themselves didn't have sufficient information to corroborate its adjusted total, so either way it is not possible to incorporate it into the chart. Betty Logan (talk) 12:52, 10 September 2023 (UTC)
Bambi adjusted for inflation?
Should Bambi be in the top 10 adjusted for inflation list? The Numbers claims that the gross of the Bambi "franchise" (including Bambi II) adjusted for inflation is
$3,105,415,294, and even if Bambi II wasn't included, the number would still be enough to fall around the middle of the list in this article. See this page: https://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchisesAlphius (talk) 06:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
That's almost certainly an error caused by adjusting the entire gross of Bambi as if it were from the original release (i.e. 1942). Bambi grossed only a small fraction of what Gone with the Wind did upon original release, so even with the re-releases there's really no way it could have an adjusted gross comparable to that of Gone with the Wind. TompaDompa (talk) 10:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
They've adjusted the complete lifetime gross from 1942. Obviously you can't do that, you have to adjust for each release. Snow White earned around $2 billion in today's money according to Guinness, and Bambi didn't earn as much as Snow White. Betty Logan (talk) 14:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
The movie is still playing in many countries, as the source already linked in the table shows, if you click on the country link like Germany, Spain, Austria, Sweden you can see that the movie is still in theaters in the last weekend--Luke Stark 96 (talk) 18:41, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Just to expand on Luke Stark's reply, if you look at the individual countries, you will see that it is still playing in places such Scandinavia and Japan. Another easy way to check whether it is an oversight is simply to check when the source was last updated. If it was updated in the last couple of weeks then that is usually a pretty solid indicator the total has changed, which is usually indicative of a film still in release. Generally I would not rely on articles such as List of American films of 2023 and 2023 in film over this one, simply for the fact that this page is better maintained. Betty Logan (talk) 18:50, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
Transformers is one series, albeit one with inconsistent continuity. It is strange that editors have broken it into subgroups. Can you please show your sources that prove these subgroups actually exist?
(Reliable sources such as Deadline Hollywood call Rise of the Beasts Transformers 7. Producer Di Bonaventura declined to use the term "reboot" and Variety magazine noted the films"weren’t exactly sticklers for the laws of time and space, either".) Fans may argue about it and attempt to subgroup parts of the series but filmmakers have not done so, and reliable sources do not seem to support such subgrouping. I do not believe fancrufty subgroups are of any benefit and only add confusion to ordinary readers of this encyclopedia. Please present the Transformers series as one series, because that's what the facts actually support. -- 109.79.68.151 (talk) 19:08, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
Although most of this list is true, sorcerers stone surpassed unexpected journey in numbers because of its re-release, also jurassic park should be higher because of the consistent re-releases. I dont know about these ones but finding dory should be lower and toy story 4 should be 1 higher than rise of skywalker. 2601:300:4900:D6A0:E585:EA1:C8FA:5A64 (talk) 00:07, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
List of Highest-Grossing Films NOT from major studios?
Is there a list of highest-grossing films that are not released or distributed by a major film studio (specifically a conglomerate's main film studio, like Warner Bros., Universal, Columbia, or Paramount)? If such a list were to include conglomerates' secondary or lesser studios (20th Century Fox/Studios, because it was a former major studio, wouldn't count), then it would be topped by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (a New Line Cinema film). Jim856796 (talk) 06:41, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Okay, now what about the other highest-grossing films by lesser subsidiaries, and the highest-grossing films by the mini-majors? As far as Lionsgate goes, I only see Crash (2004/5) on that highest-grossing independent film list. When did Lionsgate stop being an independent studio? As I already mentioned, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the only lesser-subsidiary film I know of whose worldwide box-office gross exceeds US$1 billion. I don't know of any mini-majors' films that exceed that same mark, since The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (also a Lionsgate film) has a worldwide box-office gross of only $865 million. If a list of highest-grossing lesser-subsidiaries' films included Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures subsidiaries, I'm betting that conglom would occupy the whole top 10 or so. Jim856796 (talk) 15:39, 4 March 2024 (UTC)