A young priest and an old priest.

Exactly 6 years after the opening of the last domestic record-breaker (Avatar), the movie that would finally take the record down opened - Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Today, once more, Star Wars regains its spot on the top of the North American box office, just as it did nearly 20 years ago with the a special edition of A Hope in 1997 (shortly before Titanic claimed the record and held it for 12 years thereafter) and 20 years again prior with its original release in 1977. (And speaking of 20, it only took it 20 days for episode 7 to get it done.) James Cameron's 18 year reign as director of the highest grossing film of all time has finally come to an end.

Since Avatar's release, the opening weekend record has been broken three times:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2 (2011): 169.2 m
The Avengers (2012): 207.4 m
Jurassic World (2015): 208.8 m

Yet these great films faced sufficient competition from their summer releases to burn out far shy of the record.

Skepticism abounded that a film released in December could take the opening weekend record, since the record stood at merely 84.6 m set a few years ago by the first Hobbit movie - a much anticipated follow-up to one of the most beloved film franchises of all time. How could any film possibly manage to not only double that but best it by a factor of nearly 2.5? It would take the stuff of legend for such a thing to happen. But then there was an Awakening.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens exploded onto screens and by the end of the weekend had utterly annihilated the December opening weekend record by nearly trippling it, busting up the all-time weekend record while it was at it, earning 248 m. You're looking for legendary? Episode VII had finally arrived - a sequel 32 years in the making since Return of the Jedi.

Star Wars has untold millions left yet to make at the box office, but clearly it will far, far outstrip Avatar's record. It's natural to start wondering: what might it take to topple this record, and how long?

We are now well advanced in the world of 3D's ticket-price upcharge that Avatar promptly made mainstream 6 years ago, and the premium viewing experience of IMAX continues to take larger portions of the box office. Will it take yet another new groundbreaking technology in the same vein that Avatar did it? At this point, it's difficult to imagine what could that be, or how it could improve upon Avatar's groundbreaking 3D experience so much as to create an absolute must see experience just for the technology - and really only the first big film to showcase said technology will get the huge benefit from it. That film needs to be very special to take the record when it arrives.

Of course, the Federal Reserve has drastically expanded the monetary base since Avatar, creating ever-increasing inflation that has helped films continue to set records, and with no clear end in sight, this is likely to continue. On the other hand, if there is credit collapse soon enough (it is coming), and presuming no currency replaces the dollar (a possibility), then prices could crash to the ground, and if fiat currency goes completely away, the nominal dollar record will never be broken again (as long as fiat currency is dead). So long as inflation continues to accelerate, however, we will continue to see records broken by the next film that is sufficiently anticipated and sufficiently satisfies that anticipation. But is that film on the horizon?

Avatar has 3 sequels on the way, ostensibly over the course of the next 4 years or so. But Avatar's release was largely lightning in a bottle, which is very hard to recreate. It capitalized heavily on a technological breakthrough - the future of film had arrived and the zeitgeist was that this film showcased it in a way that absolutely HAD to be seen. You would miss out on something crucial to the culture by not seeing this film in the theater.

While the film had very good WOM, the universe of the film itself was frankly secondary to the technology. Even if the Avatar sequels match or even slightly exceed this level of spectacle, it won't be seen as anything like as big of a breakthrough that Avatar brought. The consensus is that Avatar's universe was much more of a stand-alone phenomenon than one that desired expansion. While it is foolish to doubt the ability of James Cameron to expand a universe and its audience (Terminator 2 - enough said), it has a ton of work to do to merely retain that audience, let alone expand it to the level that The Force Awakens will eventually collect. It's an uphill battle of the highest order (the FIRST order, perhaps).

Episode 8 is another matter entirely. The Force Awakens has masterfully taken an enormous audience and made people eagerly anticipate the next episode. Even though Episode 7's explosive opening was a 32 year build-up from Episode 6, Episode 7 left enough unanswered to warrant a similar level of anticipation, and possibly even more. Unfortunately, the film is currently set to open in May of 2017 - during the summer season when general audiences are less available (i.e. not on Christmas vacation and together with family and old friends), and when it faces a gauntlet of big films that make it much harder for a film to stay first and foremost on the movie-going mind.

It's always possible that Episode 8 will move to mid/late-December, and/or that Episode 9 will land there, in which case the potential is there. The Star Wars spinoff films are highly unlikely to attract an audience at comparable levels to primary trilogies, it is fairly safe to say.

Fun side note: The trend continues that the record breaker features a plot-relevant damaged ship (Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Titanic, Avatar, The Force Awakens). And we now have three consecutive record breakers taking place on exclusively different planets.

Cameron will get the rights to the Terminator series back in 2019. If he is interested in rebooting the series himself, which is a distinct possibility, we could be looking at extremely high numbers - even though the universe is a much different ball game than Star Wars, we're talking about James Cameron.

While we sit back, relax, and enjoy the rest of the record-breaking run of The Force Awakens, it'll be fun to speculate on if the record will ever be broken, when it will be, what will do it, what release date that film will have, and what the film will have to accomplish (content and otherwise) to achieve it.

May the force be with you.

Are you trying to sell us gold? This is like the 2nd or 3rd post you have harped on the Fed pumping and warned us about the impending collapse of the $. I don't see it as gas is at $2.00 or lower nationwide and the CPI is not picking up anything like you are implying. There is almost alway "ever increasing inflation" unless there is a prolonged recession. This is nothing like the late 1970s.

I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on this but I'll address your points.

Price increases (like the price of a movie ticket) are the eventual result of monetary expansion, which is what inflation is - but it takes a fair amount of time for the new money to trickle down into higher prices. Measured not in days or weeks but years. Gas prices are linked to oil which is a huge international political mess and so it is in a sort of a category of its own compared to most other goods and services. And low gas prices do help create the illusion of a healthy economy and since gas is such a universal consumption expense (as opposed to an investment expense like a home) it keeps people from complaining too loudly, so it's a nice political tool to keep people happy with the status quo.

The 1970's CPI accurately reflected the price of good & services at the time. However since 2000, the CPI does not reflect those prices accurately at all. You might be saying it's supposed to because that's the whole point of it, and I agree, but it has been shown not to simply by looking at real prices vs the CPI. It has been artificially suppressed to a very large degree.

(Also, I'm not trying to sell *my* gold to anyone, not at the moment anyway - I'm going to buy while it's on sale!)

I try not to talk *too* much about this issue because it tends to be a messy conversation, but considering the topic at hand is directly related to inflation, it seemed a good time. I could have just said that "assuming inflation keeps increasing..." and kept it sterile and neutral, but I think it's really important for people to know about this stuff because it affects every single person, is not easy to understand, and there's so much misinformation about it. I brought it up because I have such mixed feelings about box office records - while it's nice to see the records, they are helped a lot by inflation, which is bad for everyone.

PR-I lived through the 1970s and what you are writing makes no sense. You want mild to moderate inflation, you don't want deflation (mild for a short time can be beneficial in certain situations), stagflation or hyperinflation. Gold only goes up in recessions when people panic. It has never reached the heights in real dollars it reached in the late 1970s.

I don't understand how a finite limit on currency would work in an economy that has a couple million more people every year.

I don't understand why people think if the economy tanks or civilization collapses it has any intrinsic value. You can't use it for fuel either internally or externally. It doesn't provide shelter. It really has no value, it is just a relic for survivalists. If you believe that you should stock up on livestock, seeds, an independant power source, and a stockpile of ammo.

You are a goldbug, that is all I was wondering.

I'm not a "goldbug" - I just have learned that it retains its value in a fiat environment. An ounce of gold has tended to buy the same amount of goods over millennia in totally different empires. A dollar, on the other hand, buys you about 4% of what it did 100 years ago. Gold does have intrinsic value (it is used not just in jewelry but in industry) because of its many desirable properties as a metal, but more importantly it is a finite resource, and that is essentially why it retains its value. The amount of it relative to the population size is not that important because it is easily divisible. Economies thrived on for centuries at a time - only when corrupt leaders began debasing it (the equivalent of inflation) did those economies eventually collapse. You are right though about other resources - those are great to hold onto as well. The 70's spike was because Nixon ended the gold standard and there was a panic and temporary bubble. Gold is way higher now than before or after that (it's higher even than the top of the spike, and still undervalued). If you had saved an ounce of gold since then, it would be worth a lot more - your dollars are worth a lot less. In a civilization collapse, something would still be used as money. Gold is what has historically worked. But yes I agree you'd be well served to have a stock of other things that retain their value.

Any amount of inflation is bad, unless you on Wall Street and benefiting from the credit expansion. Who do you know that is happy when prices rise? Do you like paying more for anything? No, nobody does. Only wall street and banks benefit, and big investors. The poor and middle classes, the vast majority, are hurt by rising prices. The reason people fear deflation is largely they have been taught to - businesses panic at falling prices and fire people, not realizing that the price of labor falls too. They simply can pay people a little less (which is obviously better than being fired) and explain to the employee that even though the pay has dropped it will buy more due to falling prices. But everyone has to understand this and therein lies the enormous challenge.

I am sorry but you are insane. You don't even know the price of gold. In 1979 it hit a peak of over $800. Adjusted for inflation that is a minimum of at least $2650.

You don't know American history or you need to refresh your memory on the Panic of 1837, 1857, 1873, and 1893. Unemployment was much higher than the Great Depression in the case of 1837 and 1893. The Rockefellers and Gettys made their fortune by buying resources from others when others panicked and bought gold.

Here is a thought experiment. What level of annual inflation do you think is ideal? 1%? 3%?

The population of the U.S. in 1800 was 5.24 million. The GDP was between $1 and $1.5 billion depending on your source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... _%28PPP%29

Let's use $1 billion for this exercise. In 2016, the population is over 320 million in the U.S. With 1% deflation the GDP would be $120.2m. The annual per capita with 1% deflation would be $0.375. With 3% deflation, which in your world must be even better, the GDP would be $1.85m. The annual per capita with % deflation would be $0.006. How would that exactly work?

The Austrian school of economics which you are advocating in your half-baked libertarian way preys on the gullible and not very well read. It is a simple solution to a more complex problem which always appeals to our baser instincts. The Von Mises and Rothbards were reactionaries who would prefer a return to aristocracy than engage in the modern world.

Inflation when not out of control aids the poor and middle class. Deflation and stagnation favor the banks and wall street. As money becomes tighter those who already have it are able to concentrate even more power and wealth as those in the lower rungs are squeezed out of ever accumulating enough wealth or capital to get ahead. The rich are able to pick up bargains on those less fortunate.

Mortgages would be defaulted, because with inflation as you get farther into your mortgage the monthly payment becomes a smaller percentage of your monthly budget as you go forward. With deflation the monthly payments balloon as your salary drops to 50-70% what it was when you set up the loan.

You really must not have given much thought to what you are advocating.

I will quit writing about this economic tangent. However, I don't think PR's really awful ideas should go unchallenged, as they might appeal to those with a limited grasp of ecomomics, US, and world history.

mdana I don't mind being challenged on the facts and theories (it can be challenging stuff), but I really don't want to continue to engage on it when there are just insults and accusations coming my way. I've been studying this stuff for quite some time now.

I will just address a couple things you brought up that are simple and relatable, rather than bore anyone with macroeconomic theory - they can look further into it if they want.

I am perfectly aware of the price of gold. As you state, it hit about 800 in 1979 - for the record you're pointing at the price at *very* specific point in time when it spiked crazy high very briefly. On many gold charts that spike doesn't even show up because it happened in such a tiny time frame. And I stated why that happened. But fine, even if you shelled out 800 for an ounce during that small window, and held on to it until today (and as I said I believe it is very undervalued), the fact is that you could sell it for 1100, which doesn't sound too fantastic because of inflation, but even in this nearly worst case scenario, suppose you didn't make that purchase and instead saved your 800 dollars in a mattress until today, look how much less that 800 is going to buy than if you had spent it on typical consumer goods back then. But in the average case scenario, the gap is far bigger than that. You can argue that there are better investments than gold, fine (and I would never suggest people in this economic environment put more than say 20% into gold just to be extra cautious), but the overall point here is that saving money should mean you get to buy more later, rather than less. Inflation prevents that, especially in today's environment with ~0% rates.

Let me expand on this briefly, since so many people are unfortunately able to be convinced that inflation is good. It really is not as complicated as most are led to believe. The notion of the poor benefiting from inflation is particularly disturbing. The simple fact is that everyone seeks out low prices when buying. The poor need them more than anyone. People do not seek out higher prices. Yes, deflation hurts the borrower in the short term, but you don't realize how much that proves the broader point. People should be able to save up to buy something, and the dollars saved should get stronger and stronger. Inflation makes dollars weaker and weaker, so people have to spend right away to prevent purchasing power loss. In a strong economy with no inflation and good interest rates, you earn interest on what you save (Here I imagine parents and grandparents trying to explain this concept to kids), and in deflation, all that money saved not only multiplies but each dollar gets stronger as time goes on. So not only does your money multiply, but things get cheaper. In constant inflation, everyone has to borrow more and more because everything gets to be so damned expensive, and they pay multiples of even that due to interest. Everyone who has experienced both scenarios knows that the heavy borrowing scenario sucks, and the more you have to borrow the more it sucks.

I suspect your response to just these relatable notions is still going to be roughly equivalent to your last one. I don't really want this thread to be an economic school brawl. We may have to just agree to disagree for now. I would encourage people though to do their own research and just do what you can to be sure you're safe before the next crisis.

I use to be a more active libertarian but IMO inflation basically has end result of extra taxes. In terms of real value, after QE the government ends up with more and the people with less. If people think taxes are good and are pro government spending I can see why they support inflation. My case is that the government is pretty shitty at spending money efficiently cause they tie it up in bureaucracy, military spending and just aren't forced into using it efficiently because unlike private ownership it's too easy to shrug off if they don't. Increasing inflation and taxes leads to giving the government value to spend it in a more wasteful way.

Not that I read any of the above, but does someone need to activate your Life Alert?