But Bambi sucked!

Don't believe in history, huh?

Beyond Snow White's monumental box office statistics, it was the first true feature length animated film and thereby opened up a whole new category of movies. Walt Disney had to risk everything to get it made, despite the common belief that it would fail. It's popular and critical success have continued for literally generations. Has no one watched it recently? It's a masterpiece.


"It is a little stunning to realize that modern Disney animated features like 'Beauty and the Beast,' 'The Lion King' and 'Aladdin', as well as the rare hits made outside the Disney shop, like Dreamworks' 'Shrek'' and Pixar's ''Toy Story', still use to this day the basic approach that you can see full-blown in 'Snow White'.''

A woman lived with 7 men with mental deficiencies in Snow White, that trumps Hamlet

We can't quite understand the huge popularity of Snow White, but based on ticket sales and press coverage at the time, it was huge -- huger than The Lion King.

If the question was what was most popular now, that would be different.

Especially when looking at 60 years ago I don't see the usefulness of those sort of numbers. Not only do increased ticket prices decrease sales, but it fits with the fact that there are now lower priced options such as renting now, which can be expected to increase the optimal ticket prices. Plus, popular releases back than could get multiple runs over many years.

I agree that some of my references may be viewed as purposefully circumstantial - - my hope in so doing, is to unfurl criteria for open discussion.

But then you're an old hand at BO analysis DP07 - - what would your strategy be towards determining an answer to this thread's question? Or do you consider it undeterminable? Unanalyzable?

_________________________________________

I don't think there's an answer.


IDK, maybe a case could be made with detailed data.

Just for fun, let's say there's a contest to win a million dollars - - to enter, you have to make a choice right now with the data you currently have - - what film would you pick?

Exactly, consider this, Lion King was extremely popular in 1994, but I'd say with general audiences there would be few to call it a better film than forrest Gump which made more, or even True Lies which owned the summer. Pre 1950s box office does not compare. Television made that impossible.

Snow White

TLK is the most well known modern Disney film followed by the Pixar films like Toy Story and Finding Nemo and such.

Perhaps you could start a thread on that topic:

Which is the most well known modern Disney film?

(If you do, I might make a case for Cars, given the depth of penetration of it's merchandising - - I've seen kids in Upper Backwaterstania wearing those damn t-shirts.)



However, this thread is discussing:

Which is Disney's most popular animated film ever among all audiences?

Actually, I think this is a lousy criterion if one of the films came out before the advent of home cinema (or even if you're comparing films that were far enough apart for home cinema to become cheaper/ more accessible in the interim).

Whenever I've enjoyed a 3D spectacle kind of movie, I've gone back to watch it multiple times, because I know I can't just recreate the experience at home. I saw Coraline three times and Avatar six. Before there was such a thing as home cinema, I can only presume all movies were like that (which explains why hardcore Star Wars fans caught the first films so many times).

A fairer comparison might be to add up all sales in all media, or simply do surveys (although arguably, some of the original Snow White fans will be dead by now).

According to BOM, Snow White has sold ~109,000,000 theatrical tickets, while Lion King has sold ~89,100,000 theatrical tickets.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, Lion King sold 30 million copies on VHS, while Snow White sold 20 million.

DVD and Blu-Ray sales numbers are difficult to assess - - but both Snow White and Lion King seem to be selling very well. Given Disney fanatics' and parents' insatiable appetite for acquiring and re-acquiring every possible format, I wouldn't be surprised to here that the digital formats sales numbers are also very close.

More difficult to assess is the number of viewers from broadcast television screenings...


With the fragmentation of television in recent decades, I can't imagine that any individual TV screenings of either film will ever come close to the number of viewers in the past.

Gotta be Lion King.

Snow White didn't make $65 million in its initial release. That's the thing about box office before the 70s, it's almost impossible to really track.

To clarify this fact - - I believe you took from my OP in this thread - - the actual initial theatrical run made the following:


I would take that to mean that the original domestic run made about $4 million. However, BOM goes on to say that the domestic gross is listed as $66,596,803 and the domestic lifetime gross is at $184,925,486.

BOM then goes on to list the adjusted gross as $853,470,000 and specifies that:


When I specified the number of tickets sold above...


...I took the adjusted gross of each film and divided it by the BOM 2012 average ticket price of $7.83.

So while Tyler may throw up his hands and say "it's almost impossible to really track", other box office afficionados have taken the time and thought to make an educated estimate as detailed in BOM's article Adjusting For Ticket Price Inflation.

Interestingly, they raise a further point in their conclusion to that article:


Part of the goal of this thread is to ponder and refine the definition of the word "popular" as it was used by Corpse in the quote that inspired it:


When you think about it, popularity really goes beyond the number of sets of eyes that have seen it - - it speaks to the emotional energy that viewers have invested in a movie and the length of time it has held a place in their heart. While both films are certainly beloved, Snow White was released 57 years before The Lion King. In the fullness of time The Lion King may well overtake Snow White in viewings, but to say that it is more popular than Snow White "ever among all audiences" after only 18 years since it's release is an insult to the generations of film lovers who cherished Snow White for more than half a century before The Lion King was even imagined.

My personal favorite is The Lion King.

snow white got nothing on TLK, no comp, not even close.

Though our taste in movies doesn't often coincide, I have usually found BJ to be a thoughtful writer who provides convincing opinions here on KJ - - the above post is not worthy of the BJ I have known for these past seven years.

Why? Because you disagree with it?

Yep.

BJ presents no evidence, argument, or rationale.