Real vs Nominal GDP

If you ask the box office charts what the highest grossing film of all time is, you get Avatar from 2009 with around US$2.9 billion worldwide, narrowly ahead of Avengers Endgame. That is the answer everyone repeats. It is also wrong in a meaningful way. The numbers count actual dollars at the time tickets were sold. They do not adjust for the fact that an average movie ticket in 1939 cost $0.23. Once you correct for inflation, the chart looks completely different. Gone with the wind, released in 1939, sold roughly 200 and 2 million tickets in the United States alone. Star Wars, released in 1977, sits second once adjusted. Most of what we casually call the biggest films of all time are actually products of a much smaller theatrical era, stretched onto a much larger ticket base.