Top Five Movies by Box Office Receipts

Settle down and take your seats for TTF’s Top Five Movies of All Time by Box Office Receipts.  Ahhh, the smell of popcorn and rustling of candy wrappers as the lights go down and you try to get comfortable in your seat, because you know, I mean you just really know, that after 30 minutes you will have a numb bum!

Going to the movies has resurged as a popular downtime destination after being almost slaughtered by the home video and DVD market, but when you look at the top 5 grossing films of all time, the old classics are missing…but wait for the end, because there is a twist in this top five tale!

#5 The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King – $1,119,929.521

The one where those furry hobbits finally get their act together, as Frodo (Elijah Wood) discovers he has a pair and stops whining long enough to get his finger bitten off by Gollum (Andy Serkis).

Meanwhile Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) slays everything in sight so he can finally come out of the closet and be crowned king and claim claiming his queen, Arwen (Liv Tyler). Ultimately, Aragorn and Co. defeat the ultimate baddie, Sauron and his orc hordes, right the many wrongs and peace returns to Middle Earth only for most of the victorious protagonists to promptly bog off so they can wreak havoc on another continent.

Directed by Peter Jackson, who handled all three of TLOR films following the books by JRRR Tolkien, the films made stars out of Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen, and also featured Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Hugo Weaving, Orlando Bloom and Ian McKellen.
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King out slashed Finding Nemo to become the #1 box office grossing film of 2003.

#4 Transformers: Dark of the Moon – $1,123,746,996

The most successful film based on a toy, Transformers started life as a Hasbro toy line which introduced the two warring factions of the Decepticons and the Autobots, but aside from film has branched out in video games, comic books, cartoon animations and more.

Starring Shia LaBeouf as the hapless hero with embarrassingly funny parents (played by Kevin Dunn and Julie White) and a smoking hot girlfriend (far too hot for him and played by English Rose, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Any doubts over LaBeouf acting ability or the absence of Megan Fox were quickly cast aside, and in any event, how can a film with John Turturo, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand fail? That cast almost sounds like a recipe for a Cohen Brothers’ film.

Aimed at kids with mass appeal across all ages, Dark of the Moon is action packed from the word go with plenty of teenage cringe moments and hot looking girls (especially the one with the English accent) not to mention the cars. Even as I write this I can hear that whirr-whirr-whirrrr sound as the Transformers transform – perhaps we should mention the fantastic special effects on this one, especially as it interplays so well with the human actors.

Directed by Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Rock and Bad Boys) and produced by wunderkind Steven Spielberg, DOTM is the 10th film to break the one billion dollar barrier and it would have the highest grossing film of 2011 but for one thing – Harry Potter!

#3 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – $1,328,111,219

Everyone’s favorite wizard, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) finally makes it to adolescence and gets to confront his nemesis, Lord Voldermort (Ralph Fiennes) in the ultimate wand smack down. The films are a roll call of British acting talent but made stars out of their child actors who were followed throughout the franchise, notably Daniel Radcliffe playing Harry Potter but also introduced Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley and Emma Watson as Hermione Granger.

My favorite part of the entire film was the emergence of poor Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) who slays Nagini, Lord V’s pet man-eating snake, spears a werewolf and tromps off to claim Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch)as his prize. There was a film in that alone.

A grand finale to the Harry Pottter films, and much better than Part 1 (an extended camping trip across damp, rainy England), it is the only Harry Potter film to be released entirely in 3D. Directed by David Yates and produced by the author, JK Rowling, David Heyman and David Barron, it was the top grossing film of 2011 and a great end to 10 years of filming and 8 films in the Harry Potter franchise.

#2 Titanic – $1,843,201,268

An epic disaster/love story based on the sinking of the famed R.M.S. Titanic, it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time (1997) with an unheard of $200 million budget that required two studios to fund (20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures). Directed by James Cameron who also co-produced with Jon Landau, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Billy Zane, Bil Paxton, Kathy Bates, Danny Nucci, Bernard Hill and more with a music score by James Horner.

Titanic tied the record for Oscar nominations (held by All About Eve 1950) and garnered 14 Academy Award nominations and went on to win 11, including Best Picture and Best Director and it tied the record for Oscar wins with Ben-Hur.

One note – Isador Strauss was high society – he owned Macy’s and was a passenger on the real Titanic – when he could not get into a lifeboat because of the women and children first rule, his wife, Ida, left the lifeboat to rejoin him – they were last seen sitting on the deck holding hands when a wave took them.  Truly Titanic Love.

A film for everyone, as it interweaves the technical stuff with romance and a fictionalized account of class structure, Titanic ruled the movie waves at #1 until James Cameron came up with another movie idea – Avatar.

#1 – Avatar – $2,782,275,172

Written and directed by James Cameron, and reuniting the production pairing of Cameron with Jon Landau, Avatar is an epic science fiction/fantasy movie intermixing cutting edge special effects with live acting. Avatar is the first film to break the $2 billion box office barrier, but it is also the top selling Blu-ray ever and many other home release records.

Filming commenced in April 2007, in New Zealand, and the film got its box office premiere in London on December 10, 2009 with general worldwide release on December 16. Avatar was initially shown at over 14,000 cinemas with 90% of box office ticket sales stemming from 3D showings – a 4D presentation was made in Korea, complete with moving seats, water spray and the smell of ammunition and explosions.

Nominated for 9 Academy Awards, it won only 3 for Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Art Direction. After the outstanding commercial success of Avatar, Cameron signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to make two further sequels. Avatar 2 is tentatively scheduled for release in 2016.

The Twist – Gone with Wind – $3.3 Billion

There is a big issue with working out comparative numbers for older films – Gone With the Wind was the highest grossing film for over 25 years and it was released in 1939. If we were to inflate the box office receipts from that time to make them modern dollars, Gone With the Wind would have grossed $3.3 billion.

In any modern listing, Gone With the Wind doesn’t even make it into the top 50 highest grossing films but that is a crying shame. On the plus side, given everyone associated with that film is dead, frankly my dear, they don’t give a damn

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