SF movies from bygone days were inflation-adjusted blockbusters
John Scalzi - SciFi Movies Made Money Before Star Wars, TooOn the Beach (1959)
One of earliest movies to use a science fiction premise (nuclear apolcalypse! Everybody dies!) without actually advertising itself as science fiction -- because Gregory Peck couldn't possibly be in a science fiction movie, you see. Be that as it may, not only was the picture lauded for its intelligent portrayal of people dealing with the end of life as we know it, it also brought in the equivalent of close to $140 million. It will be interesting to see if The Road, a similarly-themed post-apocalyptic flick also not advertising itself as science fiction, comes close to these numbers when it's released later this year.Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Prior to Star Wars, this was science fiction's one-two punch at the box office, and it was a pretty hefty combination: Planet of the Apes, helped by the star power of Charlton Heston, brought in $32 million -- equivalent to $175 million today, and a sum no one would complain about. 2001, with its groundbreaking special effects and oh-so-serious weirdness, did even better: $56 million, or just over $300 million today, which would have put it at number four in last year's box office list, just below the latest Indiana Jones flick. The two movies in fact helped spur a series of largely dystopic, serious-minded science fiction flicks, such as Silent Running and Soylent Green (not to mention, in the case of Apes, a bunch of sequels).
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This info seems similar to what boxofficemojo.com contains.
I notice that he gives numbers and an adjusted estimate for Frankenstein, which doesn't appear on Box Office Mojo's or The Movie Times' all-time adjusted box office lists though it should be around #86. I wonder why those sites don't include it. Maybe the box office numbers from back then are considered too unreliable, or they use slightly different inflation figures which could change the estimate a lot.
I disagree with the idea that Planet of the Apes is dystopian: The apes appear to live in a relative utopia while holding the human problem at bay.
As for the humans, let me point out:
1. The humans blew up the earth previously
2. They do it again in movie 2.
Thus, wise Dr Zeus was right to clamp down on the dangerous humans in order to preserve his earth-friendly peaceful society.
The Road is simply the biggest Shaggy Dog story ever written. That is all.
"2001: A Space Odyssey" is dystopic? "The two movies in fact helped spur a series of largely dystopic, serious-minded science fiction flicks..."
I beg to differ. In fact, I may have to ask you to step outside! If anything, "2001: ASO" is a symphony of man's evolutionary journey towards transcendence, genuine modern mythology which gives the Greeks a run for their money.
Isn't this conclusion a little obvious? Hollywood wouldn't have been making SF-films non-stop since the invention of narrative cinema (with Melies and the likes) if they weren't commercially viable.
I would be really interested to see actual ticket-sale numbers for these movies. Maybe the adjusted box-office would place 2001 at #4 of this years list, but I'm wondering what position it held in the year of release. Cinema attendance hasn't been constant throughout the years, so straight dollar figures compared for movies released decades apart are not always very meaningful.
And in the case of 2001, one shitty, awful, unforgivable sequel. Starring unwatchable human frump-machine Roy Scheider in place of the imitable Kier Dullea, no less.
... Also, Star Wars wasn't when Hollywood realized scifi could make money (which wasn't new, as the article points out itself), but that an 'event film' (heavily marketed, designed and produced specifically to instantly appeal to a large audience) that's not based around well-known movie-star actors and/or director/producer teams can make zillions, which _was_ actually a new phenomenon.
Oh, and speaking of both films, it should be mentioned that Apes won the Oscar for best costumes, because everybody thought the apes at the beginning of 2001 were real.
Just one more reason to hate Hollywood, and to love Stanley Kubrick.
Technically speaking, Night of the Living Dead was an SF movie (radiation from a Venus space probe started the whole thing). Considering its various sequels and remakes, that must make it one of the most successful SF franchises ever.
From memory, it took 2001 something like 3 or 4 years to even make back the budget for the film. Interesting to see if the $56 mil quoted was original run box office or over a much longer period.
Interesting sidenote - when Kubrick was filming The Shining, he held up the sound studios for Lucas filming The Empire Strikes Back - Hollywood legend has that it was because he was jealous of how much dosh Star Wars had made compared to 2001 :)
Dapasha:
"that an 'event film' (heavily marketed, designed and produced specifically to instantly appeal to a large audience) that's not based around well-known movie-star actors and/or director/producer teams can make zillions, which _was_ actually a new phenomenon."
Not really. "Jaws" did the same thing two summers earlier (Roy Schieder, bless him, was not exactly a huge star at the time), and "The Exorcist" did it a couple years before that as well, and "The Graduate" a few years before that. Each of these movies are top-20 all time grossers when adjusted for inflation. And certainly "2001" qualifies as an "event" film, with no known stars, etc.
I do agree that when people think about it, that the conclusions of the article are pretty obvious. However, as the question that prompted the article shows, a lot of people don't think about it first; lots of people apparently assume "Star Wars" was the first SF blockbuster.
Re: methodology in the article: I noted in the draft of the article I submitted that the numbers are based on reported grosses, multiplied by the product of dividing the average ticket cost today by the average ticket cost in the year each individual film was originally released. The numbers are going to be inexact because they don't take into consideration things like re-releases, which were common back in the day, as well as a few other factors; these figures should be considered "ballpark" figures rather than precise sums. The graph where I explained all this didn't make the final edited version, however.
Unfortunately, due to Hollywood accounting, almost no movie has ever made a net profit.
@ adonai:
That's funny... I'd never heard that before. Incidentally, George Lucas has referred to Kubrick as "The Master" on several occasions.
Isn't this kind of obvious? There were tons and tons of sci-fi movies in the 50s. They didn't make them out of the goodness of their heart. It was obviously making them money.
@#3 keeper
The Ape Society was a dictatorial theocracy that squashed scientific inquiry and enslaved a sentient species. Yeah that sounds pretty utopian.
@ SKR:
Correction: they enslaved a sentient, warmongering species. That's way closer to a utopia than anything we've seen.
It's worth considering that perhaps some blockbusters cited as examples had huge budgets to begin with. I haven't checked the sites/numbers but I do not imagine "Omega Man", or "A Boy and His Dog" hauled in huge money, although both were certainly Sci Fi (the latter written by Harlan Ellison).