This is a bizarre top 20 grossing list

[ReaperFett]

This is Worldwide NOT including the US:



1 Titanic (1997) $1,234,600,000
2 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) $627,100,000
3 Jurassic Park (1993) $563,000,000
4 Independence Day (1996) $505,000,000
5 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) $491,314,983
6 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001) $477,300,000
7 Lion King, The (1994) $455,000,000
8 Lost World: Jurassic Park, The (1997) $385,300,000
9 Sixth Sense, The (1999) $368,000,000
10 Armageddon (1998) $353,000,000
11 Forrest Gump (1994) $350,000,000
12 Men in Black (1997) $337,100,000
13 Star Wars (1977) $337,000,000
14 Mission: Impossible II (2000) $330,000,000
15 Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) $312,000,000
16 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) $305,000,000
17 Ghost (1990) $300,000,000
18 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) $297,600,000
19 Bodyguard, The (1992) $289,000,000
20 Matrix, The (1999) $285,000,000

[ReaperFett]

Below that are some REALLY wierd ones. Mission Impossible, Die Hard with a vengence, ROTJ and Tarzan(animated) are in the 20s. Flintstones at 42? Ransom at 86? COMING TO AMERICA AT 103??? Some good(Se7en is high) but some STINKERS! :)

[Jedi Master Carr]

Well it does show how foreign revenue is pretty recent for Hollywood in that tope 20 only two movies come from before 1989 (ET and SW) and they are both pretty low. And also 8 of the top 10 have come in the last 5 years, I wonder why it took Hollywood so long to start pushing their movies overseas?

[CMJ]

Well back in the 50's the foreign markets were large as well...then for some reason around the mid 60's foreign distribution became less key to the US movie industry. Once again in the late 80's and early 90's Hollywood has refound the oversea's marketplace.

[sirdizzy]

so what we can decyper from this list is the rest of the wrold is screwed up and should try to follow better in the US's footsteps

[ReaperFett]

Actually, I think it involves inflation

[Jedi Master Carr]

Its probably the combination of the two most likely, also the foreign market has expanded since the fall of communism and the Soviet Union, a lot of places we couldn't send movies (half of Germany, Eastern Europe, South Africa, for a different reason, Russia, and China) Now that has changed, also some countries had very few movie theaters until recently (SE Asia, parts of South America) so the only major market was really Western Europe and Australia until the mid 80's when things began to change.

[JonathanLB]

"This is Worldwide NOT including the US:"

That's just called "International:"

It's not a matter of Hollywood being stupid, it's a matter of there not being any theaters in most cities around the world besides the United States. You have to remember the rest of the world is nowhere close to what the U.S. is. There are a few countries that are perhaps only a few years behind us, but the Middle East is like 100 years behind, even most of Europe is 20 to 30 years behind. Italy is ancient. They don't even have 24 hour per day stores open and the people there don't even have computers for the most part. In Rome they do, but not in the other cities I went to, heck they hardly knew what the Internet was. But that was back in 1997. Still, they came across as behind by at least 30 years.

Then again, we had movies like 100 years ago, so some of these countries are just taking forever to build their theaters and apparently entertainment isn't a top priority in some countries where all they know is civil war. Wow, imagine that, movies are not a big deal when your neighbor just got shot ten times through the chest! WEIRD!! Haha, j/k

When Star Wars came out, as Empire Building describes, the foreign market was just an interesting side business, not really to be taken seriously and not much actual profit to be made, but Star Wars helped to change that. It was amazingly successful in at least half of the territories, not so in a few others, but it was mostly a monster everywhere.

I think AOTC will show what is really possible now overseas for a summer blockbuster (except that it will not beat Titanic obviously).

[Jedieb]

The manner in which box office receipts are calculated and recorded has changed a great deal as well. We'll never know just how much money some older films made. The revenue from those releases rarely made it into studio records here in the U.S. In foreign markets I can imagine the record keeping was even more inaccurate.