Box Office Reconsidered

For years I have argued that the foundational way Hollywood measures the success of a movie is fundamentally flawed. Box office may be what Hollywood is all about, but in trying to place movies within their context, the idea that box office totals, which go unadjusted for inflation, are even vaguely apt is just stupid. Of course box office records are going to be broken all the time when movie tickets approach (and in some markets have long passed) $10 a pop.

Finally someone has done the work to try to make sense of the figures. (Via Matthew Yglesias) Zachary Pincus-Roth has addressed this very vexing issue. Here is the adjusted list: (The movie title is given, then the abbreviation of the studio, the first dollar figure is the adjusted gross while the second is the unadjusted gross, a number that nearly across the board should reveal the absurdity of simply giving the gross and assuming that it tells us anything, especially since it is always invoked to try to make historical assertions. Finally the list includes the year of the film's release. let's hope cutting and pasting does not prove to be a formatting nightmare.)

1 Gone with the Wind MGM $1,450,680,400 $198,676,459 1939^
2 Star Wars Fox $1,278,898,700 $460,998,007 1977^
3 The Sound of Music Fox $1,022,542,400 $158,671,368 1965
4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Uni. $1,018,514,100 $435,110,554 1982^
5 The Ten Commandments Par. $940,580,000 $65,500,000 1956
6 Titanic Par. $921,523,500 $600,788,188 1997
7 Jaws Uni. $919,605,900 $260,000,000 1975
8 Doctor Zhivago MGM $891,292,600 $111,721,910 1965
9 The Exorcist WB $793,883,100 $232,671,011 1973^
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Dis. $782,620,000 $184,925,486 1937^
11 101 Dalmatians Dis. $717,405,900 $144,880,014 1961^
12 The Empire Strikes Back Fox $704,937,000 $290,475,067 1980^
13 Ben-Hur MGM $703,640,000 $74,000,000 1959
14 Return of the Jedi Fox $675,346,600 $309,306,177 1983^
15 The Sting Uni. $640,045,700 $156,000,000 1973
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark Par. $632,858,500 $242,374,454 1981^
17 Jurassic Park Uni. $618,957,900 $357,067,947 1993
18 The Graduate AVCO $614,402,600 $104,901,839 1967^
19 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Fox $609,049,300 $431,088,301 1999
20 Fantasia Dis. $596,252,200 $76,408,097 1941^
21 The Godfather Par. $566,664,000 $134,966,411 1972^
22 Forrest Gump Par. $563,957,500 $329,694,499 1994
23 Mary Poppins Dis. $561,345,500 $102,272,727 1964^
24 The Lion King BV $554,524,300 $328,541,776 1994^
25 Grease Par. $552,298,200 $188,389,888 1978^
26 Thunderball UA $537,064,000 $63,595,658 1965
27 The Dark Knight WB $533,345,300 $533,345,358 2008
28 The Jungle Book Dis. $529,021,800 $141,843,612 1967^
29 Sleeping Beauty Dis. $521,814,100 $51,600,000 1959^
30 Shrek 2 DW $510,145,700 $441,226,247 2004
31 Ghostbusters Col. $507,845,800 $238,632,124 1984^
32 Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Fox $506,605,400 $102,308,889 1969
33 Love Story Par. $502,586,700 $106,397,186 1970
34 Spider-Man Sony $498,900,500 $403,706,375 2002
35 Independence Day Fox $497,350,500 $306,169,268 1996
36 Home Alone Fox $486,331,500 $285,761,243 1990
37 Pinocchio Dis. $483,955,900 $84,254,167 1940^
38 Cleopatra (1963) Fox $482,377,300 $57,777,778 1963
39 Beverly Hills Cop Par. $482,137,100 $234,760,478 1984
40 Goldfinger UA $476,034,000 $51,081,062 1964
41 Airport Uni. $474,679,000 $100,489,151 1970
42 American Graffiti Uni. $471,828,600 $115,000,000 1973
43 The Robe Fox $469,963,600 $36,000,000 1953
44 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest BV $464,031,700 $423,315,812 2006
45 Around the World in 80 Days UA $463,938,500 $42,000,000 1956
46 Bambi RKO $457,455,400 $102,247,150 1942^
47 Blazing Saddles WB $453,973,600 $119,500,000 1974
48 Batman WB $452,014,200 $251,188,924 1989
49 The Bells of St. Mary's RKO $450,509,800 $21,333,333 1945
50 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King NL $441,843,800 $377,027,325 2003
51 The Towering Inferno Fox $440,677,300 $116,000,000 1974
52 Spider-Man 2 Sony $431,939,800 $373,585,825 2004
53 My Fair Lady WB $430,800,000 $72,000,000 1964
54 The Greatest Show on Earth Par. $430,800,000 $36,000,000 1952
55 National Lampoon's Animal House Uni. $430,012,100 $141,600,000 1978^
56 The Passion of the Christ NM $428,680,800 $370,782,930 2004^
57 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith Fox $425,950,500 $380,270,577 2005
58 Back to the Future Uni. $423,983,700 $210,609,762 1985
59 The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers NL $413,786,400 $341,786,758 2002^
60 The Sixth Sense BV $413,418,100 $293,506,292 1999
61 Superman WB $411,831,400 $134,218,018 1978
62 Tootsie Col. $408,570,300 $177,200,000 1982
63 Smokey and the Bandit Uni. $408,060,400 $126,737,428 1977
64 Finding Nemo BV $404,503,100 $339,714,978 2003
65 West Side Story MGM $401,866,600 $43,656,822 1961
66 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone WB $401,455,200 $317,575,550 2001
67 Lady and the Tramp Dis. $400,176,500 $93,602,326 1955^
68 Close Encounters of the Third Kind Col. $399,032,400 $132,088,635 1977^
69 Lawrence of Arabia Col. $397,653,900 $44,824,144 1962^
70 The Rocky Horror Picture Show Fox $395,398,500 $112,892,319 1975
71 Rocky UA $395,187,000 $117,235,147 1976
72 The Best Years of Our Lives RKO $394,900,000 $23,650,000 1946
73 The Poseidon Adventure Fox $394,196,100 $84,563,118 1972
74 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring NL $392,774,200 $314,776,170 2001^
75 Twister WB $392,660,800 $241,721,524 1996
76 Men in Black Sony $392,147,700 $250,690,539 1997
77 The Bridge on the River Kwai Col. $390,592,000 $27,200,000 1957
78 It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World MGM $386,825,500 $46,332,858 1963
79 Swiss Family Robinson Dis. $386,341,400 $40,356,000 1960
80 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest UA $385,460,900 $108,981,275 1975
81 M.A.S.H. Fox $385,452,600 $81,600,000 1970
82 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Par. $384,365,600 $179,870,271 1984
83 Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones Fox $383,903,600 $310,676,740 2002^
84 Mrs. Doubtfire Fox $378,273,900 $219,195,243 1993
85 Aladdin BV $376,536,100 $217,350,219 1992
86 Ghost Par. $369,520,300 $217,631,306 1990
87 Duel in the Sun Selz. $366,326,500 $20,408,163 1946
88 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl BV $363,659,100 $305,413,918 2003
89 House of Wax WB $362,819,100 $23,750,000 1953
90 Rear Window Par. $361,547,000 $36,764,313 1954^
91 The Lost World: Jurassic Park Uni. $358,353,400 $229,086,679 1997
92 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Par. $354,810,400 $197,171,806 1989
93 Spider-Man 3 Sony $351,204,600 $336,530,303 2007
94 Terminator 2: Judgment Day TriS $349,352,800 $204,843,345 1991
95 Sergeant York WB $345,524,500 $16,361,885 1941
96 How the Grinch Stole Christmas Uni. $345,407,000 $260,044,825 2000
97 Toy Story 2 BV $343,466,200 $245,852,179 1999^
98 Top Gun Par. $342,137,100 $176,786,701 1986
99 Shrek DW $339,546,800 $267,665,011 2001
100 Shrek the Third P/DW $336,792,000 $322,719,944 2007

Professional golf and other sports sometimes have unadjusted historical money lists, but they also have other, more important, and more germane measurements -- tournaments won, Major titles, and so forth -- that the effrontery of the money list is far less problematic.

Stop Stopping Making Sense

Apparently the Transformers sequel does not make any sense. I'm stunned. (And please do click on the link -- it is well worth it if you love full-on snark. And you do.)

Nomah!

On Monday night when Nomar Garciaparra stepped up to the plate for the Oakland A's at Fenway Park he was met with a standing ovation that lasted a minute or more. It was Nomar's first return to Fenway since his trade to the Cubs in 2004 during days that for him were far from happy. Nomar, long a hero to the Red Sox faithful, had become something of a malcontent by July 2004. Worse, perhaps, injuries had limited his range and reduced his speed. We could not have known it then, but one of the potentially truly great baseball careers (he was every bit the equal of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, which is easy to forget given the way Nomar's career fell off a cliff) was on an inexorable spiral to the point where Nomar practically had to grovel just to get a chance at a backup spot for the Athletics this season. When healthy, he can still do things with the bat. But the halcyon days of 1997-2002 are a distant memory. Still, Red Sox fans once again reminded the world that when they strip away the bombast they are still the best in sports. Nomar is just another guy now. But last night it was 1999 again and he was the golden boy bathed in the lights of Fenway and the glory of the crowd.

Back From Africa

I am back from South Africa. I got in last night after nearly 48 whirlwind hours of travel misadventures. I need to catch my breath a bit, but hopefully I'll be back posting with something resembling regularity soon.

South Africa Diary #4

I've been remarkably short on both internet access and time since arriving in Cape Town a few days ago. My latest South Africa Diary posting at the Africa Blog discusses being a tourist, authenticity, and delivery of housing, among other things. Enjoy.

South Africa Diary #3

At the Africa Blog I have posted South Africa Diary #3 in which I recount a day that saw the Good (the Springboks winning a heart-stopping match to take the British and Irish Lions series with a game to go), the Bad (hitting the travel wall after spending eight of the last nine weeks, and when all is said and done, nine of ten, in a different time zone than my home), and the Ugly )the aftermath of a scene of nearly unimaginable violence).

South Africa Diary #2

My second installment of my South African diary is now up at the Foreign Policy Association Africa Blog. In it I discuss today's Springbok-British and Irish Lions rugby match and the South African response to Michael Jackson's death.

South Africa Diary #1

After several days without internet, I have emerged with my first South Africa diary at the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog. In the entry I discuss being a victim of crime upon arrival in the country, the Southern African Historical Society biennial meeting, a friend's tragic loss, and the setting in which I watched the US-Spain game, among other things. Please give it a look. Tonight a friend rolls in to South Africa for his first trip here, so I'll be playing host, something I've gotten to do a few times before and that always allows me to experience the country in new ways and through new eyes.

I'll close with a topical joke that I also repeat at the Africa Blog Diary entry: My taxi driver told me this on the way to Pretoria after I arrived (keep in kind that South Africa could only play Iraq to a draw in their meeting to open the tournament): What do the United States and South Africa have in common? Neither one can beat Iraq.

South Africa Bound

I am heading to South Africa tomorrow for what has become my annual return trip there. I'll be balancing work -- the South African Historical Society's biennial meeting starts Monday, and I am giving a paper there, and I have some research to do in the Joberg-Pretoria region as well as in Cape Town -- with play, including meeting up with one of my best friends who has never been to South Africa before.

I plan to write South Africa diaries that are akin to my Keele Diaries from last month. Though I may be mainly writing them for the Foreign Policy Association's Africa Blog. I will either crosspost here or possibly link to those posts with a brief description or summary.

I am, as always, looking forward to my return to a country I deeply love. I hope to catch live one of the clashes between the Springboks and the touring British Lions and maybe even try to see one of the Confederations Cup football matches next week when the games move to the knockout rounds. But the first stop is the SAHS at the University of South Africa's Sunnyside campus in Pretoria.

Thoughts on Iran

A longtime reader and friend sent me the following email the other day about the ongoing situation in Iran:

I have been spending a fair amount of my newspaper/internet time reading about the protests in Iran and what strikes me is the way that the press and photo/video journalism have been used in previous protests (civil rights movement as the first and most powerful) to accelerate change and how it has the potential to make meaningful change in Iran as well. I thought you might be well-positioned to be thoughtful on the subject given your background and focus. The one thing that it is so difficult to get a grasp on is how much "Americanized" spin is being put on the protests. Given that Americans have such a skewed conception of the middle east and Iran in particular, it is tough for me to know if the protests are the precursor to meaningful change or are just two different sides of what amounts to a relatively minor disagreement over the pace of gradual reforms, and whether this is Soweto or Tianamen Square.

Here are the thoughts I sent to him, though looking at it, I do not know if I answered the last part of his question, and so I will do so toward the end of the post:

1) I think it is clear that both the protesters and the state are well aware of the power of media. This explains why the state has been so deeply committed to crushing not only dissent, but especially to controlling the media access. Outside reporters have been banned, the media, circumscribed already, has been virtually shut down. There is no doubt that the protesters, meanwhile, are trying to counter the crackdown by using new media -- the state has tried to respond by shutting down blogs and the like, and so we see the Twitter aspect. What I wonder about that is just how pervasive the Twitter aspect is -- I cannot help but wonder, for example, whether or not Andrew Sullivan (who turned his blog into virtually all Iran all the time) is overstating the actual concrete importance of Twitter. But it is clear that those using the new (and otherwise pretty annoying and self indulgent) technology see it as one way to control the story as best they can.

2) As for the comparative framework, obviously it is hard to tell now. But certainly the awareness of the importance of getting the story -- and as important the images -- out to the larger world indicates that they are cognizant of how important images are. During the Civil Rights Movement, as you well now and alluded to, the media played a vital role, and more to the point, the civil rights activists knew this. During the Freedom Rides the protesters were well aware of the important of images, indeed, of promoting the sorts of conflicts that would garner attention, and thus sympathy. If the media was not there to cover it, it did not happen. The CRM was tremendously successful at this, but the segregationists learned as well. two examples will suffice. During the Freedom Rides when one of the first batches of students and their allies were dropped off at Parchman Farm in Mississippi, a couple tried to go limp and use the nonviolent technique. The police said, in effect, what the hell are you guys doing? There are no cameras here. John Lewis conceded that they had a point. The second example comes with the Albany campaign. Sheriff Laurie Pritchett had read about and paid attention to the contours of the movement and especially to King's nonviolence, including reading King's books. As a result, he knew that a Bull Connor-esque confrontation was the surest way to draw media attention and thus bring the crisis to a boil. So there was little no no violence under his watch. Arrests were orderly, even polite. And the media did not descend on Albany, changing the narrative of that struggle considerably.

3) in South Africa certainly the media was a factor as well, though much of the appeal was to the global media, as the apartheid state had the capacity to respond by cracking down on the media in the country. Interestingly, one of the main motivations for politicians during the Cold War was to prevent the American civil rights movement from becoming international news -- futile in the face of Bull Connor and others, during the 1963 campaign in his city but also during the Freedom Rides. Those events making front page news in the US was bad enough, but when that burning bus was splashed across newspapers the world over? As my friend Jaime would say, no goodo.

4) I'm not sure how much Americanized spin is being put on the events, certainly a lot from our vantage point. This is most obvious in the (to my mind silly) criticism of Obama that he has not been ardent in addressing the situation. This is not our fight. Though it has enormous ramifications for the US, that is a struggle that is still Iranian in nature. Obama recognizes this in a way that Bush/Cheney would not have and Netanyahu does not. Now does this mean we will never act? No. but it means bellicosity is not the right approach.

5) One thing that somewhat vexes me is the amount of attention this incident has gotten relative to other similar crises. I am especially thinking of Africa, in particular Kenya and Zimbabwe. Now those situations received their share of attention relative to African issues normally, but nothing compared to what this is getting. Andrew Sullivan giving his blog over? C'mon. I am not denigrating or downplaying the Iranian situation. I simply cannot see why it is so much more outsized than the situations in Zim or Kenya. Or I do, but I disagree -- the answer is tied to realpolitik. Iran has more strategic value in the minds of most people. And that belief may well be true. But intrinsically, the events in Africa are no less important or fraught or complex (or violent) than those in Iran.

That is my response to him. Now, as to the question of whether this qualifies as a precursor to meaningful change, I am not especially optimistic. The reader astutely posed two situations -- Soweto or Tiananman -- both of which certainly have some parallels. In the case of the Soweto Uprisings, the effect was to invigorate the anti-Apartheid movement that had been quiescent in the wake of the South African government's response to activists in the post-Sharpeville Massacre period. Soweto started a long process that led to the crises in the 1980s in South Africa and that in turn fueled the negotiations and ultimately the fall of apartheid and rise of Mandela and the ANC. Tiananman, meanwhile, simply showed the length the Chinese leaders would go to to maintain control and crush opposition. Though it is worth noting that post-Tiananman things have opened up considerably in China, even if it is far from a free nation, and even if the Chinese authorities rarely concern themselves with the niceties of human rights either within China or outside of it. My suspicions are that it will be more like Tiananman inasmuch as there are two factors reinforcing one another: The role of the state as an authoritarian presence and the role of religion as quite literally a higher power within Iranian politics. I hope, of course, that I am wrong.

Williams Keeps Kicking Ass

For the eleventh year in a row (and the 13th time in the 14 years of the competition) Williams College reigns supreme in the world of Division III college athletics. Williams has won the Directors Cup, which tabulates results across college athletic programs, yet again. Tellingly, the top three were Williams, Middlebury, and Amherst (BOO!), all NESCAC schools, all elite academic institutions. Brains and brawn go hand-in-hand at these schools. Perennially number one in the national liberal arts college rankings (the best at academics), number one in athletics (the best at sports), and number one in our hearts. Come fill your glasses up, to Williams! To Williams! To Williams!