🎬🧵 What happened to The Movies? I looked at the top 2100 domestic box office films of the last 42 years to find out. Here are some findings.
For one: more sequels & comic book movies.
In 1981, just 16% of Top-25 movies were sequels, spinoffs, or remakes. In 2019, 80% were.
🎬🧵 The shift towards sequels and spinoffs is more stark in the top 10.
In 1993, all of the top 10 movies were standalone films. In 2011, 2017, 2019, and 2021, none were.
The last standalone, non-adaptation movie to top the box office? Avatar, in 2009.
🎬🧵 Looking at it decade-by-decade makes the picture even clearer.
In the 1980s, non-adapted, non-sequel films were 58% of all top-10 movies. In the 2010s: 13%.
Comic book adaptations meanwhile went from 2% of all top-10 movies in 80s to 31% in the 2010s.
I can't do a data visualization without a gratuitous gif, so here's one of inflation-adjusted (using basic CPI) gross by rank over time.
Top-5 Domestic Box Office Showings:
1) Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
2) Titanic
3) E.T.
4) Avatar
5) Avengers: Endgame
🎬🧵 Today, top-50 movies, on average, are 8 minutes longer than they were in 1980 (110➡️118 min).
Top-10 movies are, on average, 18 minutes longer than they were in 1980 (112➡️130 min).
Longest Top-50 Movie: Spike Lee's Malcom X (3hr 22m)
Shortest: Mysteries of Egypt (38 min)
🎬🧵 Since it debuted in 1984, the PG-13 rating has grown to be the most popular designation in the top 50. (Though R has been making a minor comeback since 2000.)
Since then, 40% of all top-50 movies have been PG-13, 32% R, 24% PG, and 4% G.
🎬🧵 Women have directed just 4.4% of all Top-50 movies since 1980, and 5.2% of all Top-10 movies.
Female director w/ the most top-50 🎞️'s: Nancy Meyers (6)
The highest rank for a female-directed film: #3 (Frozen, Frozen II, and Shrek)
The last all-male Top-50 year: 2010(!)
🎬🧵 The big five studios (Disney, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and their subsidiaries) dominate the box office, having produced 90% of all top-50 movies since 1980.
Disney leads the pack by-far, having produced 26% of all Top-50 and 31% of all Top-10 movies since 1980.
🎬🧵 Source & methods: I scraped the core data from Box Office Mojo. Then I checked the directors, source material, and sequel status manually. (I got to the top-25 before giving up.)
🎬🧵 A note on classification: Movies depicting real events/lives were marked original unless it was adapting another account (e.g. a biography). Movies w/ a mixed-gender directing team are counted as female-directed. Most movies in "other" are from TV, theater, or toys.
One note is that the "it's the monopolies, stupid" answers to the question of what happened to original movies is wrong. The industry was just as — if not more — concentrated by the same studios during the 1980s and 1990s. It's change w/in the studios, not between.
To be clear, this does NOT imply that people are just less creative today. Amazing artists & ideas are out there. What it does suggest is that studio tolerance for and audience interest in standalone movies has declined. Which is the cart and which is the horse is not certain.
Also sequel and adaptation status is not a 1:1 proxy for quality. The Godfather II is a sequel and an adaptation!
🎬🧵 Addendum to be taken with a low-sample-sized grain of salt:
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