I'm not saying cinema's dead, rather that headlines of "RECORD BOX OFFICE RETURN" that drive the genre of comment I was replying to are bullshit.

They're not. Inflation adjusted, Endgame's about to beat Avatar. Only Gone with the Wind is ahead. There's tons more money out there now.

Those aren't the numbers I see [1]. For domestic US, Endgame is in 18th place.

Why not worldwide? Even the US numbers are rickety. There are multiple ways to account for inflation, multiple ways of record counting for sales, trying to factor in re-showings, etc. Adding on multiple currencies and economies is a power of extra complexity.

> There's tons more money out there now

Yes. Money. My whole thing here has been about weighing success by monetary takings. It doesn't necessarily track. The price of a ticket has far outstripped what retail indexed inflation. Tickets, after inflation, are eighteen times more expensive than their 1950s counterparts. You only a eighteenth of the 1950s audience to gross the same.

But while we're talking about bullshit headlines, looking up Endgame renders some gems [2]. Things like "Fastest to $1bn" aren't just historically incomparable because of inflation but because distribution has changed significantly. Movies in the US used to have months of lead-time ahead of the global market. There still is for many languages. Modern studios recognise the waste and damage in this. Endgame was globally available (to over half the population) within 4 days. "Highest Opening Weekend" grossses also have the same problem.

1: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm?adjust_yr... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_box_office_records_set...

The US economy hasn't grown much, adjusted for inflation, compared to the world economy. That's primarily because of the rest of the world was much poorer.

And your numbers are not accurate, I think. Inflation from 1950 to the present day has been 900% if this site is to be believed: http://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1950?amount=100

So the 50 cent cinema ticket from back then would be 5 dollars now and instead it's around 9 dollars. Double, but not 18x.

The original statement of Endgame beating Avatar is still incorrect. Which is what started this chain of comments in the first place. Along with Endgame not even beating Avatar worldwide without inflation (currency exchange rates aren’t going to be that drastic with a decade population and financial growth).

Where did you get your numbers from? Endgame won’t beat Avatar at all without inflation worldwide. In the US it doesn’t beat Avatar with inflation adjusted. Then you have Titanic that just completely destroys Endgame after inflation in the US. Probably worldwide too. Though that’s harder to say and there wasn’t really China back then. Along with China being much smaller for Avatar too.