Yeah i recall a lot of my friends going to see it at the time. Not too surprising as its in the family of Sandler comedies which were huge back then.

I remember Rob Schneider feeling like a big deal back in 2000.

The Hot Chick brought an end to that.

He also had The Animal in 2001 which was also a solid hit.

We think it's impressive when a low-budget musical like La La Land might be making $150 million - but this movie made that back in 1978. Adjusted for inflation, its original run made over $600M. It was a smash hit from its opening weekend and legged it out to be one of the most successful movies of all time. Not bad for a film made on $6 million budget...

I assume you mean Grease.

As Tom Cruise's The Mummy flops domestically (yeah I know int'l numbers will save it, still), let's take a moment to appreciate how massive the first two Mummy movies were, yeah?

The first film opened May 7, 1999, back when there had only been really two massive pre-Memorial Day openers (Deep Impact and Twister). And the only only had only one semi-major name - Brendan Fraser, whose only $50M+ grosser up until then had been George of the Jungle. And yet it managed the ninth largest opening weekend of all time, which adjusted for inflation would not rank nearly that high, but it would still adjust to $75.5 million, which would be a great opening for a starless remake of a semi-obscure horror classic. And despite having the the then-most anticipated movie of all time in its third weekend, it had some pretty decent legs and finished with what would be an adjusted total of $270.4 million.

The second one, following two years later, then managed the SECOND largest opening weekend of all time, only $3 million short of the then-record. That was of course as opening weekends were starting to really blow up, but it was still pretty insane to see happen at the time, considering that the original film was a hit, but didn't quite seem like an adored smash. Adjust for inflation, and its $68.1 million OW becomes a $106.4 million opening - an amount of tickets that this new movie will be lucky to sell in its entire run.

Yeah I initially thought The Mummy original movies didn't do much but they were really HUGE in their time. I believe this new version had the potential to do $500m OS and $700m WW.

And Saturday Night Fever adjusts to $360m.

More recently, Hairpray (2007) made $152m adjusted.

The gospel choir version.

The Waterboy now adjusts to $304.1 million, and Big Daddy to $286.1 million. Da fuq? Man people loved Adam Sandler.

Sadly.

Waterboy's $161m didn't feel like what $304m feels like today.

I'm not an economist but I wonder if the inflation adjustment metric truly accounts for historical/future value.

Well, it ended up being the fifth biggest movie of 1998, a ranking that would require a $350 million gross the last couple of years. And it peaked at #50 on the all time chart, a rank currently held by Batman v. Superman ($330.4 million). I think the problem is that at the time, we kinda took for granted that comedies - hell, anything non-comic book/animated films - could be that massive at the box office, since I could probably find a few other comedies from that era that adjust similarly.

Film going is too front loaded now for anything but the very best received films to find legs that lead to such a huge total since original films don't open big in general.

It also reminds me that I still can't believe Little Nicky did that bad

On one hand, it shows how arbitrary audiences are in their tastes, but I think it's also because 1) Audiences generally don't like movies that are elaborate and filled with special effects but are intentionally silly, and 2) I think the concept was off-putting to Middle America.

I wonder how many times it's been watched after its theatrical release?

Was doing some research, and found out Tarzan, the Ape Man, the 1982, advertised as kinda-softscore Bo Derek vehicle, adjusts to 120 million. That would be rock-solid for a 50 Shades sequel, and it's only about fifteen million less than 2016's Legend of Tarzan. (And not too far of from the literaryish Legend of Greystroke. It seems the property has had a center of gravity for the last few generations)

Life is more expensive in general than it used it to be in the 90s, everything from property prices to food to fuel, etc while wages have remained very stagnant, so a lot of these films that adjust to $300m+ now only do so because back then the economic decision to go to the theatre was more affordable for most people. Now if you live in a major city you're looking at a $40+ date night between the tickets and popcorn for two people. Inflation keeps people away from the theatre depending on the film, it's not a mindless purchase like it sort of used to be.

This is the Top 5 of 1998 adjusted to 2017 $

1 Saving Private Ryan DW $410,351,300 2,807 $58,479,200 2,463 7/24
2 Armageddon BV $385,534,400 3,184 $69,025,000 3,127 7/1
3 There's Something About Mary Fox $336,183,300 2,555 $26,280,100 2,186 7/15
4 The Waterboy BV $306,869,300 2,782 $75,382,600 2,664 11/6
5 A Bug's Life BV $306,195,500 2,773 $556,800 1 11/20

It may not be perfectly adjusted in regards to actual ticket sales, but they do feel about right.

Saving Private Ryan was big out of the gate and had great legs.
Something About Mary was a word of mouth phenomenon.
The Waterboy was the biggest opener of the lot and was a big hit (Sandler coming off The Wedding Singer the same year).
Armageddon was a bit of an OW disappointment (perhaps thanks to Deep Impact being released earlier) but it certainly rallied with some good legs.

And for context, Titanic made $933m in calendar year 1998. It dwarfed the other films and made them look like lesser hits at the time.

It only works for films within 8 years (max) of the subject film.

In terms of admissions, Saving Private Ryan is not that much bigger than American Sniper, and Hangover did more than Something About Mary, and Armageddon is in the neighborhood of a high-end Transformers, so it's definitely not a hard collection to get ones head around. I think with Adam Sandler, it's that we saw his popularity erode in real time, and there's something strange about the king of Doing the Least being such a box-office titan.

Certainly believable.

Sandler’s rise was very similar to Jim Carrey earlier in the decade.

Wedding Singer was the break-out hit – then two similarly grossing megahits followed within a year (Waterboy and Big Daddy)

Ace Venture was the breakout hit for Carrey – then two similarly grossing megahits followed within the year (The Mask and Dumb & Dumber)

Well I think a cult following was being build with Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore which allowed a breakout for The Wedding Singer. Ace Ventura on the other hand was completely out of nowhere with little build up.