Wizards of the Coast and Golden Age of Fantasy

[mmadsen]

If you want D&D to succeed? Make it visual. As long as it is a game that takes place in the player's imagination - it's a niche product.

For the most part, D&D does not take place in the players' imaginations; it takes place within a highly complex, detailed set of mathematical models, the rules. Only a very small subset of the population enjoys learning vast numbers of rules and tracking numerous mathematical values in order to tell a light-hearted adventure story in a fantasy land of monsters and magic.

 

[carmachu]

Bleh. Numbers can lie. If you want to scale a few movies up with inflation, I believe 'Gone with the Wind' blows them all out of the water.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Bleh. Numbers can lie. If you want to scale a few movies up with inflation, I believe 'Gone with the Wind' blows them all out of the water.

To a point that's true. But I don't think there were too many Gone with the Wind lunch pails and collectible toys (or toothbrushes, pillow cases, backscratchers, etc.)

DVD sales of SF/Fantasy and licensed products (and, above all, children's animated films) are a much larger relative source of revenue these days. Box office as a leading indication of a film's revenue can be misleading.

Star Wars blows them all away in terms of overall revenue due to its licensing value - even 30 years later. It's not even close. Which is why we've been spoon fed Fantasy and SF big summer films for the past 30 years. With the exception of Titanic, not a single "big movie" in the adjusted for inflation list is NOT a genre film after Star Wars' release.

And I'd argue that Titanic's huge special effects budget was so significant to the success of the movie that is essentially WAS a genre film with a romance wrapper.

Gone with the Wind is really no different. Along with Wizard of Oz of the same year, it was the first color movie - in itself a massive "special effect" that was of the same nature to make it the Star Wars/ Titanic of its day. The thing ran in first run and rep theatres for 35 years to accumulate its box office total - and did not have a VCR, DVD or Internet or to compete against during the entire length of that run. It made the biggest chunk of its money before there was TV.

8 of the top 20 of all time would be "genre films" when adjusted for inflation. What the numbers reveal is that unless it's an animated film, comedy is almost an impossible genre in which to hit it out of the park.


1 Gone with the Wind MGM $1,329,453,600 $198,676,459 1939^
2 Star Wars Fox $1,172,026,900 $460,998,007 1977^
3 The Sound of Music Fox $937,093,200 $158,671,368 1965
4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Uni. $933,401,500 $435,110,554 1982^
5 The Ten Commandments Par. $861,980,000 $65,500,000 1956
6 Titanic Par. $844,515,900 $600,788,188 1997
7 Jaws Uni. $842,758,600 $260,000,000 1975
8 Doctor Zhivago MGM $816,811,300 $111,721,910 1965
9 The Exorcist WB $727,541,800 $232,671,011 1973^
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Dis. $717,220,000 $184,925,486 1937^
11 101 Dalmatians Dis. $657,455,500 $144,880,014 1961^
12 The Empire Strikes Back Fox $646,028,600 $290,475,067 1980^
13 Ben-Hur MGM $644,840,000 $74,000,000 1959
14 Return of the Jedi Fox $618,910,900 $309,306,177 1983^
15 The Sting Uni. $586,560,000 $156,000,000 1973
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark Par. $579,973,400 $242,374,454 1981^
17 Jurassic Park Uni. $567,234,400 $357,067,947 1993
18 The Graduate AVCO $562,688,100 $104,642,560 1967
19 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Fox $558,153,800 $431,088,301 1999
20 Fantasia Dis. $546,426,100 $76,408,097 1941^

 

[WayneLigon]

Movie-going does not track into other genres. Lately, comic book movies have been big business. They get tens of millions of dollars in marketing, all-pervasive vertical product spin-offs and the like. You'd think that with tens of millions of people paying to see Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman Begins and the like that there would be resultant comics sales? It hasn't happened, not even a blip on the retail radar. As far as those tens of millions of people are concerned, comics don't even exist in their world. Comics orders still track at around a mere 150,000 units for the biggest best selling blobkbuster titles, numbers that would have spelled cancellation without a second thought 20 years ago.

Sometimes there just is no correlation. I thought the success of LOTR would bring many more midieval-ish fantasy movies into the marketplace. Instead, we got two.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Movie-going does not track into other genres. Lately, comic book movies have been big business. They get tens of millions of dollars in marketing, all-pervasive vertical product spin-offs and the like. You'd think that with tens of millions of people paying to see Spider-Man, X-Men, Batman Begins and the like that there would be resultant comics sales? It hasn't happened, not even a blip on the retail radar.

The comic book itself - no. The perfect bound graphic novel? YES. The sales of those things have sold hugely with massive increases in readership.

Importantly, they are also sold at large book and mass market retailers and not specialty shops.

 

[Thomas Percy]

DVD sales of SF/Fantasy and licensed products (and, above all, children's animated films) are a much larger relative source of revenue these days. Box office as a leading indication of a film's revenue can be misleading.

Your chart is interesting, but I'm curious how it was created? How to compare value of the dollars in various parts of XX century?
I don't have any evidences, but I'm not believeing, the product without any marketing or with '70 marketing can be sold as good as product supported by 2007 marketing.

 

[Steel_Wind]

It's not my chart - it's Hollywood's. I believe it uses the Consumer Price Index to adjust for inflation over the course of years.

In that regard, it's reasonably accurate. The first number listed is adjusted dollars, the second number listed is reported dollars not adjusted for inflation.

Gone with the Wind's #1 position is also distorted because a great portion of that box office was not earned in 1939 but over the course of the 40s and 50s. More than any other film, the thing ran in movie houses forever. After all, there was no TV to show it on for a good 16 years or so post release.

Gone with the Wind was first shown on TV only in the mid-70s IIRC. It made enough at the box office up until then to justify not showing it on TV for free.

But it is adjusted in dollar terms right back to 1939 as if it made all of its money in that year - which it certainly did not. So since the adjustment goes back to 1939 and the end of the depression - the dollar conversion when adjusted for inflation does wonders for adjusted value, giving it a multiplier of about 6.5. A more accurate multiplier to take into account when it earned its money would be closer to 4.5 or thereabouts I would guess.

The #1 movie, adjusted for inflation, more accurately viewed, would be Star Wars.

 

[WayneLigon]

Your chart is interesting, but I'm curious how it was created? How to compare value of the dollars in various parts of XX century?
I don't have any evidences, but I'm not believeing, the product without any marketing or with '70 marketing can be sold as good as product supported by 2007 marketing.

Adjustment for inflation. We know how much a dollar buys today versus how much a dollar bought in 1970, and such lists make use of that. http://www.bls.gov/cpi/ has a tool that can give an approximation of dollar value today compared to years past. For instance, in 1980 the dollar was roughly 2.5 times as powerful as it is now; it's buying power went further. If a movie made one million dollars in 1980, it's like it made 2.5 million dollars today.

Marketing isn't everything. "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." -- Attributed to John Wanamaker, father of modern advertising concepts. Every year we see films or books that become surprise big hits with little or no advertising (Such as 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding'), and heavily advertised movies and tv shows that bomb.

 

[Ranger REG]

5. WotC is world leader of fantasy "industry" progress. Our mother-company creates new rules, magic items, spells, classes - everything which will become Hollywood's bilion-dollar business after 5-10 years.
6. WotC is destined to be successful. 4e will be best selling game ever.

Hmph. Not if I have anything to do with it. WotC will rue the day they cancel print magazines.

 

[Frostmarrow]

For the most part, D&D does not take place in the players' imaginations; it takes place within a highly complex, detailed set of mathematical models, the rules. Only a very small subset of the population enjoys learning vast numbers of rules and tracking numerous mathematical values in order to tell a light-hearted adventure story in a fantasy land of monsters and magic.

I even enjoy deciphering what you just typed.