Saga Number of tickets sold for each Star Wars movie.

Star Wars: 178,119,600 (100%)

Empire Strikes Back: 98,180,600 (55%)

Return of the Jedi: 94,059,400 (53%)

The Phantom Menace: 84,738,800 (48%)

Attack of the Clones: 53,468,500 (30%)

Revenge of the Sith: 59,324,600 (33%)

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_Canada_and_the_United_States )

By each film title is A) the number of tickets it sold, and B) this number expressed as a percentage assuming that the 1977 Star Wars film is 100%.

Discuss.

 

I'm surprised that the drop from Star Wars to Empire Strikes Back is so precipitous. ESB is generally considered nowadays to be the best of the bunch, so it is a bit surprising to see that stark of a decline. Then again, it is a sequel and has a significantly darker tone, so that likely affected the box office. As for the prequels, I imagine it's difficult to compare directly with the original trilogy due to the advent of home video (especially DVD in the 21st century). I know there are a lot of people who are like me and, during the 2000s, generally just rented movies from Blockbuster or other video stores when they become available. It's much cheaper (not to mention more comfortable) to watch a movie at home than in a theater. That, I suppose, made a significant difference.

 

Wow, I automatically assumed all the Star Wars films were more or less equal in terms of ticket sales. The decline in sales between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back surprises me, too. I suppose it would make sense if re-releases were taken into consideration. Is there any way of knowing if this is the case?

 

It's interesting that the six films are in three groups:

1. The 1977 Star Wars film is on a lonely pinnacle all by itself.

2. ESB, ROTJ, and TPM each had ticket sales about half that of SW.

3. AOTC and ROTS each had ticket sales about one-third that of SW.

 

Here's my gut instinct, expressed in hypothetical expressions from "The Man in the Street" right after leaving the theater:

SW: "That's one of the best movies I've ever seen! You gotta go see it! I'm going to go again next weekend. Let's go together!"

ESB: "Kind of a downer. It didn't even have a real ending. Oh, well. Sequels are never as good as the first."

ROTJ: "Some of my friends aren't seeing this movie because they weren't that impressed with the last one."

TPM: "Everybody I know who likes the Star Wars Trilogy has seen this. I was disappointed. I'm not so sure about seeing the next one."

AOTC: "A big chunk of my friends who saw TPM didn't even bother seeing this one."

ROTS: "A big chunk of my friends who saw TPM didn't even bother seeing this one, though Tommy went ahead and came because he heard Darth Vader was in it."

 

I hope no one's trying the old "prove/disprove prequel quality through numbers" game again...

Just another factor to throw out there:

1980 US Population: 226,545,805
1980 Canada Population: 24,517,000
TOTAL 251,062,805

2000 US Population: 281,421,906
2000 Canada Population: 30,689,000
TOTAL 312,110,906

That's a difference of 61,048,101 people, give or take.

For TESB in 1980, that's 2.56 people for every ticket sold.
For TPM in 1999, that's 3.68 people per ticket (or slightly less, to account for the difference of a year's growth).

Ignoring repeat viewers, that's a ticket apiece for
39% of the population in 1980
and a bit over
27% of the population 1999.

 

Sorry if that was confusing - I wasn't trying to make any claims about repeat or not repeat viewers. I was just saying that IF we pretend there were no repeat viewers for either movie, then that's the percentage of people who would have each bought a ticket.

--

I would guess that repeat viewing also accounts for a lot of the difference between TPM and AotC/RotS. A lot of people pre-ordered multiple tickets for that one.

Either that, or a lot of people who showed up for the second coming of SW and were so turned off they didn't bother with the other two.

 

Well said and an excellent point.

In addition you also have to take into account the way people consume media today (basically 1990 on) is vastly different than in the late 70s/early 80s. The sheer volume of competing media interests is overwhelming. In the late 70s broadcast television with its handful of local and national broadcasters was the norm. Most major markets had 5-7 stations to choose from and cable was still in its infancy with its small lineup of 5 or so stations. Today people literally have hundreds of alternate viewing options in addition to dozens of movie specific channels. The explosion of streaming movie content over the last three years has also taken a chunk out of this market as well.

Back in the late 70s/early 80s, really the only option you had to see a movie was going to your local theater unless you were content to wait a couple of years until it showed in reruns on TV. VCRs were primarily a prosumer level product and did not start to become mainstream until 1984-85 and until that time most VHS tapes were not priced with the consumer in mind. If you wanted to own a movie you were going to pay the same price the video rental store was charged which was about $90. It wasn't until the releases of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and "Star Trek II" that the market started distributing videos that were priced to buy. But even then that was the exception until 1989-90.

Additionally with the explosion of high def television and emergence of various platforms to distribute movies in high def, the studios now have to contend with people being satisfied with waiting for a movie on home video since they can have an excellent moviegoing experience right from the comfort of their own living room.

So trying to use actual ticket sales data is a little misleading due to the enormous leaps in technology which are changing the industry. Just look at the ticket sales data for "Gone With the Wind" compared to ANH. Some historians estimate over half the country saw GWTW during its initial run... and this was in the middle of the Great Depression. But then again GWTW did not have to compete with television for the public's attention.


Yancy

 

Once again, we see there is no record the classic trilogy can possess, that the Phantom Menace cannot take away.

 

To put this into some perspective:

Star Wars: 178,119,600
Titanic: 128,345,900
Jaws: 128,078,800
Empire Strikes Back: 98,180,600
Return of the Jedi: 94,059,400
The Phantom Menace: 84,738,800
The Lion King: 89,101,100
Avatar: 75,000,000
The Dark Knight: 74,282,100
Shrek 2: 71,050,900
Spider-Man: 69,484,700
Independence Day: 69,268,900
American Graffiti: 65,714,300
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: 61,538,100
Revenge of the Sith: 59,324,600
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: 57,630,400
Attack of the Clones: 53,468,500

I find it pretty interesting that Empire, Jedi, and Menace all had better attendance than Avatar, while Spider-Man, Independence Day, and even American Graffiti had better attendance than Sith and Clones. Keep in mind that these numbers are only domestic.

 

Considering Avatar ($2 billion) made four times as much as Empire ($538,375,067), I don't consider that to be an "of course".

I think you misunderstood my post. I'm not trying to start an argument. If anything, my point is show that older films like American Graffiti got more money with, like you said, no home video market.

 

To talk about Star Wars?

 

The list of tickets sold only reinforces what I said earlier, people's entertainment options have had a huge impact on attendance numbers at the theater. Only one movie since TPM has had larger attendance, Avatar, and 7 of the top 10 films were made before ANH. What's actually more interesting is that TESB and ROTJ had a similar percentage of attendance versus ANH as AOTC and ROTS did versus TPM.

Yancy

 

As has been said elsewhere, looking at these numbers is interesting, but fans should avoid apples to apples comparisons. The market, the competition, the population, the demographics the technology, etc. between 1977 and 2005 are wildly different. ALL the Star Wars films have been huge successes. Even AOTC and ROTS, which sold the fewest tickets, were exactly comparable with huge hits like LOTR: TTT and LORT: ROTK.

 

Right, and if the ticket price for Empire had been the same as the ticket prices for Avatar in IMAX, RealD and 2D, Empire would have taken in well over $2 Billion, in todays money.

It's that old inflation line. Whenever someone said that TItanic (and now Avatar) was the highest grossing film of all time, I'd proudly proclaim that if you took inflation into account that A New Hope was way out in front of them...then I'd mumble under my breath about Gone With The Wind being number 1, hoping they didn't hear me.

 

Here's another approach, just for fun (numbers are still domestic, from BoxOfficeMojo):

1977
#1 - Star Wars - $307,263,857
#2 - Close Encounters - $116,395,460
1980
#1 - The Empire Strikes Back - $209,398,025
#2 - 9 to 5 - $103,290,500
1983
#1 - Return of the Jedi - $252,583,617
#2 - Terms of Endearment - $108,423,489
1999
#1 - The Phantom Menace - $431,088,295
#2 - The Sixth Sense - $293,506,292
2002
#1 - Spider-Man - $403,706,375
#2 - Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - $339,789,881
#3 - Attack of the Clones - $302,191,252
2005
#1 - Revenge of the Sith - $380,270,577
#2 - Lion, Witch, Wardrobe - $291,710,957

Percentage of next-highest-grossing film that year:
SW = 264%
TESB = 203%
RotJ = 233%
TPM = 147%
AotC = 75%
RotS = 130%

 

What was the second big movie? LotR came out in winter.

According to BoxOfficeMojo, AotC came out AFTER Spider-Man.

And "Titanic in space" is a wild exaggeration. Forbidden love was just one of many angles in the advertising. There were still a boatload of lightsabers and lasers in every commercial I saw.

Those are just the top two (except in 2002, where I had to go down to 3 or else AotC wouldn't show up) of each year.

I'll grant that TESB had 1980 pretty much to itself. RotJ, on the other hand, was up against Superman and James Bond in the weeks after it opened.

 

LotR came out in DECEMBER. Unless you're from a different country or some strange remote town, I don't think the two were ever in theaters at the same time.

I'd also point out that Superman and Bond came out two and three weeks after RotJ, before the multiplex era.