box office numbers?

[drednm]

Is there a source for box office numbers for films of the 1920s and 30s?

[Richard P. May]

Box office grosses weren't compiled until rental policies changed to where most were based on a percentage of the gross. Before that, the majority of rental fees were on a flat basis, so there was no reporting of box office.
Also, before more modern data technology, this would have been a massive manual job, and of dubious accuracy.
Doing a Google search for "motion picture grosses" will find you several sites where you might get some information.
Keep in mind adjustments for inflation. For instance, AVATAR just jumped to the top all-time grosser, but GONE WITH THE WIND, adjusted for inflation, still is way in the lead.
A picture like GWTW is likely to have some estimated box office figures published, since a film of that level had mostly percentage of the gross rentals. The figures were probably, though, calculated backwards taking the rental returned to the distributor, and working it against average admission priced over the years of release.

[Gumlegs]

In addition, no one has any idea whatever what "The Birth of a Nation" grossed. It was distributed on a states rights basis, so any number for its gross is ... highly imaginative.

Lillian Gish claimed that in many towns it played to more than the local population. FWIW.

[drednm]

Schickel made an assessment for The Birth of a Nation box office based on claims by Griffith, the distributor, states rights numbers etc etc and confirmed the $60M claim, which in today's money would be more than $1.2B.... He worked it backwards from local/state reports and it's likely the film earned upward to $60M, which more than supports claims by Griffith and Gish.

[Mike Gebert]

I find those kind of numbers highly improbable.

The first reason is that the U.S. was much more prosperous in the twenties than the teens. The best statistic I could find showed per capita GNP climbing from around $4800 to around $5800 between 1919 and 1929, but there was almost certainly substantial wartime growth between 1915 and 1919 as well. So we could easily have seen upwards of 30% growth in overall wealth during that time. It was also a time of movement from farms to cities, which favored younger people with more disposable income— in other words, moviegoers.

Leaving Econ 101 aside, there is plenty of evidence in our own knowledge of the industry to support the idea that the movie business took off between 1915 and 1930. Theaters got wildly grander. Movie stars saw their salaries go up tremendously. Intolerance ruined Griffith with a negative cost of less than a million; yet MGM coudl spend $4 million on Ben-Hur. And so on.

Maybe Birth of a Nation could have vacuumed up an absurdly large share of a much smaller industry. But it just seems to strain credulity to believe that movies such as Ben-Hur, The Big Parade, The Covered Wagon, King of Kings and so on would have topped out at a tenth as much at a time when the movie industry was far more robust overall. (Or even a fifth, if that figure represents grosses and the others rentals.)

Historically, there's another film released by unconventional means which was rumored to have been the highest grossing film of all time. But in fact, if one considers the limited circumstances under which it played, the fact that there were many parts of the country where it never played at all and that it was usually only small theaters where it was booked, it becomes obvious that these figures are not practically attainable. So I don't believe Deep Throat was a bigger hit than Jaws or Star Wars, and I don't believe Birth of a Nation was a bigger hit than Ben-Hur or Gone With the Wind— except, perhaps, relative to the total movie market at that moment. What I can believe is that it was by far the biggest fish in the smaller pond of the teens.

[drednm]

Well Ok.... BUT

Schickel reports that Epoch, the film distribution company founded to distribute BOAN reported in 1917 that after all the various runs of BOAN the film receipts stood at $4.8M (Variety estimated $5M in 1977 after delving into the topic). Epoch's returns from states' rights distributors was only 10%. Hence pushing total box office to around $50M.

Epoch handled it's own "road show" engagement in major cities and took and higher portion of the recipts. Schickel also points out that theater owners regularlu underreported receipts (and took the money off the top). He points out that the ever-charming LB Mayer, who had New England rights to BOAN shaved off $335K for himself (Bosley Crowther in Hollywood Rajah) so on a national basis, millions were raked off the top.

The best data is therefore found on Epoch's own financial statements which listed the $4.8 million in receipts number.

The film was clearly a bigger event than we can imagine even in a smaller market. As pointed out here, Gish always claimed to film routinely played to 2-3 times the population. Clearly, repeat viewers were the key.

[boblipton]

And, of course, just because a town might hae a population of, say 1000, doesn't mean that people won't come in from the countryside.

Bob

[Richard P. May]

Looking at these numbers, and the inquiry that started it: are the figures quoted supposed to be film rentals (more likely to be obtainable) or interpolated box office grosses?

[Harold Aherne]

I find those kind of numbers highly improbable.

The first reason is that the U.S. was much more prosperous in the twenties than the teens. The best statistic I could find showed per capita GNP climbing from around $4800 to around $5800 between 1919 and 1929, but there was almost certainly substantial wartime growth between 1915 and 1919 as well. So we could easily have seen upwards of 30% growth in overall wealth during that time. It was also a time of movement from farms to cities, which favored younger people with more disposable income— in other words, moviegoers.

The official census figures for the first half of the 20th century:
1900: 39.6% urban; 60.4% rural
1910: 45.6% urban; 54.4% rural
1920: 51.2% urban; 48.8% rural
1930: 56.1% urban; 43.9% rural

I haven't found the Census Bureau's official tally for 1880 or 1890, but the rural population in those days seems to have been greater than 70%. So while a lot of attention is focused on 1920 because of the tipping past 50%, and rural out-migration was significant, the 10s and 20s don't seem to have had *aberrantly* large rural-to-urban changes. Another problem is that in the 1910 census and later, 2500 people was the cutoff point for rural, whereas we'd now consider that figure to indicate a small town. I haven't found specific data regarding how many people lived strictly in 50,000+ population centres.

Now, I do find the $60 million figure (or any figure) for BOAN dubious. But even though the major hits of the 20s like The Covered Wagon and The Big Parade played out over several years, BOAN was probably nonetheless available on a more constant basis for a greater number of years--the major reissues took place in 1921 and 1930, but was it *ever* completely withdrawn as a major studio film would've been?The various newspaper archives online demonstrate that various theatres were giving the film one- or two-day revivals in 1917-19 and it seems to have played frequently well into the 20s.

What I can believe is that it was by far the biggest fish in the smaller pond of the teens.

And yet, there was plenty of competition in the 10s--per the AFI, 617 American features in 1915 along with seemingly countless 1- and 2-reelers. That would grow to an astonishing 945 features in 1917 and then shrink back to--roughly--683 in 1921 and 698 in 1927, for instance. Triangle alone released 109 features in 1916 from its various producers and Paramount released about 142 in 1919 (by 1925 the number had shrunk to 77, which can partly be accounted for by the defection of Ince and Cosmopolitan--but there were still an impressive 84 or so films in 1919 that were strictly FP-L). Someone had to be attending all these films if their producers and distributors were going to make a profit from them.

-Harold

[drednm]

The majority of people who saw BOAN in the teens were likely rural Americans (the majority of Americans in the teens) who paid little for a ticket as opposed to the road show events that charged $2 or $3, so overall prosperity of the decade seems to have little to do with movie-going.

The financial sheets for Epoch seem fairly clear and point to a huge overall take. These figure also include Canada.

[Mike Gebert]

I assume the 60 million is a gross figure. I know BOAN played some higher priced engagements at first, so let's conservatively guess an average of 15 cents a ticket (the average was probably around ten then), and we get 240 million tickets sold. US population in 1915 was right around 100 million, so that's 2.4 tickets per individual.

Gone With the Wind is known to have taken in $22MM in rentals in its initial US release. A LOT of this was at higher prices, so let's assume an average of 50 cents per ticket and you get 44 million tickets sold. US population was about 140 million then, so that's about 0.3 tickets per individual-- at a time of substantially greater prosperity (the Depression was basically done by then), not to mention cultural dominance by Hollywood.

Extraordinary phenomena are possible— White Christmas is supposed to have sold more in '42 than the entire record industry sold in '32— but I continue to find this claim impossibly dubious, almost certainly created by taking questionable figures and multiplying them up by the most favorable possible interpretation of their implications.

[Mike Gebert]

Harold's post came up while I was composing that last:

So while a lot of attention is focused on 1920 because of the tipping past 50%, and rural out-migration was significant, the 10s and 20s don't seem to have had *aberrantly* large rural-to-urban changes.

No, not aberrantly large. The GNP growth in that time isn't enormous, either, but it's one of the healthiest periods in US history. And yet with such trends trending favorably, the biggest hits of the 20s only did a fraction of what BOAN supposedly did? It's possible-- Gone With the Wind basically did the same thing, its total take dwarfs any 1930s film, largely because only it could get away with $2.50 seats (the equivalent now would be paying $80 to $100 to see Avatar in 3-D Imax). Yet when the 50s came along, and other producers could copy Selznick's road show, multi-year distribution methods, they achieved similarly outsized grosses with similar event films (The Ten Commandments '56 and Around the World in 80 Days). GWTW was reissued in the late 50s precisely because MGM wanted the title of biggest box office champ of all time back from Ten Commandments. If WWII had never happened, you'd have seen more like it very soon after. GWTW's level of success is not really unique, even if it seemed like it at the time; that claimed for BOAN is.

What's claimed for BOAN is a success of orders of magnitude beyond any other film ever, a feat that the Mayers and Zukors and Warners couldn't even come close to duplicating for all that the industry was far better organized a decade later. I'd need some pretty solid stats to believe that, and they don't exist.

[drednm]

Well, Mike... taking the Epoch financial reports as a pretty solid piece of evidence (they would have no reason to pad the numbers), I'd say that the phenomenon of BOAN has never been equalled.

This of course takes nothing away from the great and deserved success of GWTW (it was a different world) or even current-day hits with their big ticket prices.

Inflation shows that even a $2 ticket in 1915 would now cost more than $42. Sheer film-goer numbers alone don't account for the adjusted $1.2B estimated take for BOAN, it's largely inflation.

[Harlett O'Dowd]

And yet with such trends trending favorably, the biggest hits of the 20s only did a fraction of what BOAN supposedly did? It's possible-- Gone With the Wind basically did the same thing, its total take dwarfs any 1930s film, largely because only it could get away with $2.50 seats (the equivalent now would be paying $80 to $100 to see Avatar in 3-D Imax). Yet when the 50s came along, and other producers could copy Selznick's road show, multi-year distribution methods, they achieved similarly outsized grosses with similar event films (The Ten Commandments '56 and Around the World in 80 Days). GWTW was reissued in the late 50s precisely because MGM wanted the title of biggest box office champ of all time back from Ten Commandments. If WWII had never happened, you'd have seen more like it very soon after. GWTW's level of success is not really unique, even if it seemed like it at the time; that claimed for BOAN is.

What's claimed for BOAN is a success of orders of magnitude beyond any other film ever, a feat that the Mayers and Zukors and Warners couldn't even come close to duplicating for all that the industry was far better organized a decade later. I'd need some pretty solid stats to believe that, and they don't exist.

It's a bit more complicated than what you've spelled out.

BOAN and other films of the era did play roadshow editions at $1 and $2 prices in the big cities and did very well in those engagements. Perhaps not as well as GWTW ultimately did in its inititial roadshow engagements, but very very very well.

Conversely, GWTW did go to "popular prices" after its roadshow and a quick look at google news shows it playing into 1943. However, BOAN appears to have played, if not continually, regularly from 1915 through 1928 - and then was re-released in 1930 with a soundtrack. Tellingly - and chillingly - an ad from the Miami News dated November 23 1926 stated that "every real American should see The Birth of a Nation at least once a year." Most telling of all - the quote is unattributed.

We have seen that a goodly percentage of the tickets Cameron has sold for Titanic and Avatar have been to repeat customers. Especially if we are to believe that BOAN was used as a Klan fundraiser/recruiting tool, it is easy to imagine some folks seeing it multiple times. Maybe not Rocky Horror Picture Show often, but often.

Another thing to note about the cyclical nature of the film business - Hollywood went through a box office slump in the mid 20s as radio became popular and films did not really get their mojo back until talkies came in. And while film attendance increased steadily through the late 30s and through the war years, peaking in 1945, few post-GWTW films had the physical resources the 1939 films had because of conservation for the war effort. Like you noted, it was not until the post-television/widescreen era that we saw BIG films like Ten Commandments and The Sound of Music break records with their roadshow releases. It's not that films made between 1940-55 didn't try to match BOAN and GTWTW's success, but all the necessary pieces were not in place.

But BOAN had advantages similar to GWTW and Cameron's opi. That's not to say I buy the BOAN projections as gospel. There are way too many variables in here that make it impossible to come up with accurate figures, but it made a lot of folks a lot of money and was seen by a sh*tload of people.

[Mike Gebert]

Okay, I'm going to stop beating this dead horse unless someone raises a direct question I can answer.

it made a lot of folks a lot of money and was seen by a sh*tload of people

No question.

But I don't believe that even if Epoch's figure is right (and I can think of a few reasons that a studio might inflate its figures for the press*), the astonishing $60 million follows in any credible way. The equivalent of $10 million, even $15 million-- maybe.

As shocking as it may be to contemplate "hype" and "D.W. Griffith's reputation" in the same sentence....

I also suspect one reason it got hauled out all the time was because, since it was an old states-rights picture, it was basically free or damn near for small houses trying to scrape by. So I doubt those two-day engagements at struggling theaters meant anything meaningful to its ultimate tally. Actual reissues are another matter (and the 1930 one was a big success).

* Selznick claimed for years that For Whom the Bell Tolls took in a GWTW-comparable $12 million in rentals. In the 70s the figure was finally adjusted to a more believable $7 million, which is still a big hit for 1943, but hardly titanic, so to speak. (Figures pulled from memory, may not be correct, but the idea is accurate.)

[mrbertiewooster]

Well worth investigating are the chapters on the 1910s and the 1920s in the new book, George Lucas's Blockbusting.

The book looks in detail at the biggest movies of every decade adjusted for inflation so as to provide an accurate comparison of box office over the years.

Then check out the blog written by one of the editors, Lucy Autrey Wilson. In heartening news for Nitrateville-ites, she concludes that D.W. Griffith still whups Jim Cameron's ass, with Birth of a Nation the No.4 Top Grossing Film Worldwide and the blue smurfs at No.11 (http://blockbustingbook.blogspot.com/20 ... igger.html).[/url]

[drednm]

If anything Epoch would likely have deflated recipts numbers since its payout to shareholders in BOAN was based on the receipts but Griffith supposedly gathered up $680K based on a "profit" of $1.8M. And again the financial report from Epoch was for 1917 so whatever came after is not included this assessment.

The figures are hard to imagine but then none of us was there when BOAN was storming the country. The film was the phenomenon of the film age. Newspaper reports of the day tell about unimaginable positive responses to this film and long lines months after it opened.

It must be remembered that no one had ever seen anything remotely close to BOAN in epic scope, emotional power, and just plain good storytelling. And in 1915, the Civil War was still within human memory, not just a dusty relic of history pages as it is to us.

[rudyfan]

It must be remembered that no one had ever seen anything remotely close to BOAN in epic scope, emotional power, and just plain good storytelling. And in 1915, the Civil War was still within human memory, not just a dusty relic of history pages as it is to us.

Sure they did, Ben Hur of 1907!

[drednm]

not in the same league..... Ben who?

[Mike Gebert]

The film was the phenomenon of the film age. Newspaper reports of the day tell about unimaginable positive responses to this film and long lines months after it opened.

Or so we've been told by film history books for decades.

Yet just 5 or 6 years later, when Photoplay did a poll of its readers for the best film of all time, the winner was The Miracle Man, second was The Kid, and the third was Griffith's... Broken Blossoms.

Interesting.

[Christopher Jacobs]

I don't have my Schickel book handy, but is his $60 million a grand total extimated boxoffice gross, or just the silent era gross, or only its initial roadshow runs into the 1920s?

It's easily believable as an accumulated gross, including the roadshows of the last half of the teens, its reissues in the 20s, 1930, and 1940, and later revival theatre showings. THE BIRTH OF A NATION evidently was in continuous release for 15 years or more in the southern states, so whether it was a general audience "favorite" or not, it had the benefit of long and repeated availability (perhaps comparable to today's video/cable TV access) that kept it selling tickets, whether or not any percentages still went to the producers.

And adjusting for inflation quite likely places THE BIRTH OF A NATION well near the top grossing (again, not the top earning) films of all time. Even when it got to Grand Forks, ND in December of 1915, box seats cost a dollar, just like a stage show, and regular seats were 50c, with balcony and matinee prices down to 25c, whereas a typical movie would cost 5c, 10c, or 15c for a ticket. As noted by a previous poster, today this would be like paying $50 to $100 for a movie ticket, and theatres packed in audiences from the surrounding area of any town the film played in. In Grand Forks there were special trains scheduled for nearby communities to come to town to see the film. THE BIRTH OF A NATION played an entire week in an era of two and three-day runs, and as soon as it left, the local paper continued running large ads informing people it was still playing in Minneapolis, a good day's train ride away.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs

[drednm]

The Schickel (pages 280-81) estimate is based on a 1917 financial sheet from Epoch, the company set up to distribute the film. He doesn't list a date but it's probably findable since Variety apparently tracked down the same info. But let's assume it allowed for 2 years of release.

Despite lower population, higher number of rural Americans, etc. (compared to let's say 1939), the film was probably seen by a larger percentage of the overall population than any film in history. For whatever reason, basically EVERYONE saw this film 1915-17. All 4 of my grandparents saw this film in New England when they were children (just as an aside, not proof that EVERYONE saw it).

I wonder how the film did in Europe and if it faced the same problems.
Any info on Europe's reaction to BOAN?

[rollot24]

And adjusting for inflation quite likely places THE BIRTH OF A NATION well near the top grossing (again, not the top earning) films of all time. Even when it got to Grand Forks, ND in December of 1915, box seats cost a dollar, just like a stage show, and regular seats were 50c, with balcony and matinee prices down to 25c, whereas a typical movie would cost 5c, 10c, or 15c for a ticket. As noted by a previous poster, today this would be like paying $50 to $100 for a movie ticket, and theatres packed in audiences from the surrounding area of any town the film played in. In Grand Forks there were special trains scheduled for nearby communities to come to town to see the film. THE BIRTH OF A NATION played an entire week in an era of two and three-day runs, and as soon as it left, the local paper continued running large ads informing people it was still playing in Minneapolis, a good day's train ride away.

But was every performance a sell out?

[Christopher Jacobs]

But was every performance a sell out?

I can't verify that every seat was sold out, but every performance during the initial roadshows was essentially a full house. Later reissues likely had lower attendance, but obviously enough to keep the film in circulation.

The Schickel (pages 280-81) estimate is based on a 1917 financial sheet from Epoch, the company set up to distribute the film. He doesn't list a date but it's probably findable since Variety apparently tracked down the same info. But let's assume it allowed for 2 years of release.

If his $60 million estimate is only for the first two years of grosses, then that might be compared with a $600 million gross today, and if a full 95 years worth of ticket sales to THE BIRTH OF A NATION were able to be tallied and adjusted to today's prices, then my guess is that there's probably no question that THE BIRTH OF A NATION would qualify as the top-grossing film of all time and for some time to come.

--Christopher Jacobs
http://hpr1.com/film
http://www.und.edu/instruct/cjacobs

[rollot24]

I don't have her book at my fingertips, but I seem to remember that Lillian Gish said there were so many gray/black market prints that you could never get a good number of tickets sold. I don't know if she was refererring to the "instructional/recruiting" uses.

[Mike Gebert]

Despite lower population, higher number of rural Americans, etc. (compared to let's say 1939), the film was probably seen by a larger percentage of the overall population than any film in history.

Yes, assuming "population means the U.S.

and if a full 95 years worth of ticket sales to THE BIRTH OF A NATION were able to be tallied and adjusted to today's prices, then my guess is that there's probably no question that THE BIRTH OF A NATION would qualify as the top-grossing film of all time and for some time to come.

...and no, probably not. Simply because a film of primarily American interest, opening in a nation of 100 million, simply didn't have as many people to see it as a film which plays in a U.S. of over 300 million and in foreign markets around the globe. At $2 billion worldwide gross, Avatar will wind up having played to something like 3-400 million people theatrically. Especially if it played at substantially higher average prices than the norm, there's just no way BOAN reaches that many people in raw numbers, even if its percentage of the population was higher, which it likely was.

Incidentally, the one that's truly unknowable is King of Kings. Modern Sound kept that in distribution to the church market for 60+ years, and so it played to vast captive audiences all over the country every Christmas and Easter. But any guess at how many people saw it over the years would truly be guesswork and no more.

[Chris Snowden]

Guys, take a step back. The population of the United States in 1915 was 100,000,000. There is no conceivable way that any movie grossed $60,000,000 in that era. (And the $18,000,000 gross for Mickey that Ed cited in another thread is even less realistic.)

The source of this $60,000,000 figure is Richard Schickel, not the most reliable source for historical facts, and it's one he's extrapolated from figures offered by Epoch. But Epoch was headed by the biggest crook in the business, Harry Aitken, who was simultaneously cheating the shareholders of Triangle in a way that would've put him in prison for life if he were doing it today.

Epoch's revenue numbers can't be trusted. If it was reporting cumulative revenue of $4.8 million in 1917, you can bet Aitken was seeking to sell the company (and why not, considering Triangle's ongoing financial crisis) for as much as he could get. Inflating Epoch's numbers is exactly the kind of thing he would've done. Schickel doesn't say whether Epoch's report was independently audited. I'm guessing not.

So how much did The Birth actually gross? We'll never know, but Variety (September 5, 1928 and again on June 21, 1932) put it at $10 million. The Hollywood Reporter (August 31, 1934) put it at only $3.5 million.

A gross anywhere in that range meant the film was a gold mine. But it's a far, far cry from $60 million.

[rollot24]

So how much did The Birth actually gross? We'll never know, but Variety (September 5, 1928 and again on June 21, 1932) put it at $10 million. The Hollywood Reporter (August 31, 1934) put it at only $3.5 million.

Math is not my strength, what would those numbers translate to today?

[Harold Aherne]

So how much did The Birth actually gross? We'll never know, but Variety (September 5, 1928 and again on June 21, 1932) put it at $10 million. The Hollywood Reporter (August 31, 1934) put it at only $3.5 million.

Math is not my strength, what would those numbers translate to today?

$100 million in 1915 translates to about $212 million today, according to a couple of inflation calculators. $3.5 million equals about $74 million. My own preferred calculator is at this link.

Speaking of phonograph records, as Mike did earlier in this thread, a black-label Victor in 1915 cost 75 cents, which equates to $15.92, about the price of a slightly discounted DVD. The most expensive Victrola that year cost $300, or more than $6300 today. The simplest tabletop model cost $15, which would still set you back the equivalent of $318. What were the average movie ticket prices at the fancier Broadway theatres like the Mark Strand?

-Harold

[drednm]

Harold your math makes no sense.... the inflation calculator I found online made $1 in 1915 $21 dollars now.

Your $100M figure would now be over $2B, not $200M