With summer at the end and all the biggies out of the gate I don't see any breakout performance that could top Harry Potter for the yearly crown. This also means that none of the movies will enter Top 100 for inflation adjusted number, the very first since 1998 when Saving Private Ryan topped with $216.5m and all this with 3D boost. (While it is highly unlikely but there is a chance that Deathly Hallows makes $381m and takes out Toy Story from #100).

I think as the years pass these records will have sort of immortality unless something really lifts BO admissions. After 12 years in 21st Century (considering 2000 as well) we have just 2 movies in Top 30, of that one had HUGE 3D Boost and the other one just barely made Top 30.

I am just posting some adjusted totals (I know these might not be accurate but they should be correct for 2000-2011).

Rank	Movie Name	Adjusted Gross	Unadjusted Gross	Release Year
1	Gone with the Wind	$1,610,295,700	$198,676,459	1939
2	Star Wars	$1,419,613,200	$460,998,007	1977
3	The Sound of Music	$1,135,050,500	$158,671,368	1965
4	E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial	$1,130,579,000	$435,110,554	1982
5	The Ten Commandments	$1,044,070,000	$65,500,000	1956
6	Titanic	$1,022,916,700	$600,788,188	1997
7	Jaws	$1,020,788,200	$260,000,000	1975
8	Doctor Zhivago	$989,359,600	$111,721,910	1965
9	The Exorcist	$881,232,300	$232,671,011	1973
10	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs	$868,730,000	$184,925,486	1937
11	101 Dalmatians	$796,340,500	$144,880,014	1961
12	The Empire Strikes Back	$782,499,700	$290,475,067	1980
13	Ben-Hur	$781,060,000	$74,000,000	1959
14	Avatar	$775,124,500	$760,507,625	2009
15	Return of the Jedi	$749,653,500	$309,306,177	1983
16	The Sting	$710,468,600	$156,000,000	1973
17	Raiders of the Lost Ark	$702,490,600	$242,374,454	1981
18	Jurassic Park	$687,060,600	$357,067,947	1993
19	The Graduate	$682,004,000	$104,901,839	1967
20	Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace	$676,061,700	$431,088,301	1999
21	Fantasia	$661,856,500	$76,408,097	1941
22	The Godfather	$629,012,900	$134,966,411	1972
23	Forrest Gump	$626,008,500	$329,694,499	1994
24	Mary Poppins	$623,109,100	$102,272,727	1964
25	The Lion King	$615,537,400	$328,541,776	1994
26	Grease	$613,066,400	$188,389,888	1978
27	Thunderball	$596,156,000	$63,595,658	1965
28	The Dark Knight	$592,028,200	$533,345,358	2008
29	The Jungle Book	$587,228,900	$141,843,612	1967
30	Sleeping Beauty	$579,228,200	$51,600,000	1959

This table brought to you by Excel2BB Converter. Created by Krem for World of KJ

Other movies in Top 100 from 2000-2011

Rank	Movie Name	Adjusted Gross	Unadjusted Gross	Release Year
31	Shrek 2	$566,275,900	$441,226,247	2004
35	Spider-Man	$553,793,400	$403,706,375	2002
45	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	$515,088,100	$423,315,812	2006
51	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King	$490,459,000	$377,027,325	2003
53	Spider-Man 2	$479,465,200	$373,585,825	2004
57	The Passion of the Christ	$475,847,600	$370,782,930	2004
58	Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith	$472,816,900	$380,270,577	2005
60	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers	$459,314,400	$341,786,758	2002
65	Finding Nemo	$449,009,700	$339,714,978	2003
67	Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone	$445,626,500	$317,575,550	2001
75	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring	$435,990,300	$314,776,170	2001
79	Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	$429,590,400	$402,111,870	2009
85	Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones	$426,143,700	$310,676,740	2002
91	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl	$403,671,700	$305,413,918	2003
96	Spider-Man 3	$389,846,900	$336,530,303	2007
99	How the Grinch Stole Christmas	$383,411,400	$260,044,825	2000

This table brought to you by Excel2BB Converter. Created by Krem for World of KJ

Which movie do you think will next be in the Top 30?

Crazily, there will come a time when even the top 30 is immortal. This clear fact of a cutoff for not being able to make the top n beyond a given year has made me distance myself from the adjusted chart more and more over the years.

Inflation's a bitch!

Media dilution's a prick!

Bradley has a big dick. Or so I hear.

Ah that's the table I was looking for, not sure how to incorporate it though. Is it easy?

Also, I am of the belief that anything more than +/- 10 years is incomparable.

It is easy to say that movies back in the 30s/40s/50s etc won't make the same if they were released today but also a lot of things have changed since the 80s and 90s. Not to mention that with technology developing at an increasing pace (sort of) it is a little hard to compare within the same decade but that's what I think is the maximum parameters.

Maybe +/- 5 years is better. So if we're looking at this year's Deathly Hallows 2 winner which according to Gitesh has sold half the amount of tix as Jurassic Park in '93, it would have sold 43.1m so far. That's still below all SMs/LOTRs, three Shreks and MR from my own comparison thread.

Given through my calcs that if Potter's avg. price is $8.29, it is 32c higher than the current average of $7.97. If we average those we get $7.65 as the 2D price. Thus if Potter sold another $20m worth of tickets it would put it at around 45.7m tickets just slightly below Shrek, STT, MR and SM3.

This means that using that ticket sales, it would be beaten by the following this decade:
2001- Potter 1, FOTR, Shrek
2002- SM, TTT, AOTC
2003- ROTK, FN, COTBP, TMR
2004- Shrek 2, SM2, Passion
2005- ROTS
2006- DMC
2007- SM3, STT, Transformers
2008- TDK
2009- Avatar, ROTF
2010- TS3

So, so far, in its comparable decade, Potter 8 would place 23rd place adjusted. Not too shabby I suppose all things considered. In a sense though, it is getting bloody hard to sell a lot of tix. Next year should be the litmus test with Hobbit and TDKR and Avengers/TASM representing some of the franchises on this list.

Part of me thinks the climate has changed once more, no thanks to the shitty economy. One year probably helps the box office as it is the cheapest alternative, but it's been what 3 years? People are just keeping money or they don't have any.

Yes BK there is an Excel sheet that you have to download and then use the Macro. It is pretty easy though it is an extra effort if you have bold the text. Here is the link that I downloaded the tool from. Not sure if this is the latest one

download.php?id=2

That is where you are mistaken, the only foreseeable candidates maybe. But who knows what random original film in the next few years could catch the hearts of everyone.

Number of tickets sold is the one true indicator of a film's adjusted popularity.

I don't think tickets sold, and even adjustion for inflastion, is a fair barometer for a film's popularity if only because people watch a film in so many diverse ways nowadays. I'm not saying that Avatar should be considered the unambiguous biggest movie ever, but neither should Gone with the Wind. Films can't be re-released over and over again like they used to be, and couldn't inflation after 1939 skew the perception of how many tickets were actually sold?

"Popularity" can't really even be discussed in terms of box office no matter how well we adjust the box office. We could name a dozen adjustment factors other than ticket price, but even if we theoretically got it just right, we know that just because someone bought a ticket for the theater didn't mean they like the film.

Yeah... that's actually totally true, so...