New at The Numbers: Most $100 million Movies Per Year

August 9, 2017

Beauty and the Beast

Here at The Numbers, we strive to improve your reading experience by adding more features we believe you will find interesting. Today, the new feature is a chart showing the Most $100 Million Movies Per Year, which joins our miscellaneous domestic box office records section. 2014 currently holds the record, with 34 titles released that year that crossed the $100 million domestically.

There are a couple of quirks to point out due to the way the movie industry keeps track of records. The main point to remember is we use the film’s release date and not the year it crossed a particular milestone. For example, Return of the Jedi opened in 1983, and crossed $300 million during its 1997 re-release. Even though that was 14 years later, it counts as a 1983 $300 million movie. The other quirk is that our theatrical market analysis uses the calendar year to rank movies. For example, Avatar was released in late 2009. It earned just over $350 million during the calendar year 2009, which was enough for second place for the year. It also earned just over $400 million during the calendar year 2010, which again was enough for second place for the year. At the time, the film was the biggest domestic box office hit of all time, but it wasn’t able to earn first place in any one calendar year. However, in the Most $100 Million Movies Per Year, all of its milestones are credited to 2009, even if they were crossed in 2010 so Avatar is listed as the biggest film released in 2009.

On a side note, at the moment, 2017 is tied for 19th place on the chart with just 18 films that have reached the $100 million milestone. It would need more than a dozen additional films to cross the $100 million mark just to reach the top five. That is certainly possible, but it could be very close. 2017 might not get there until February when an Oscar winner gets a boost in theater count and reaches the century mark as a result. On the other hand, it seems likely 2017 will tie the record for most $400 million films at three and most $500 million films at two.

Filed under: Analysis