8 Messages
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192 Points
Frequent IMDb error: Display of Boxoffice Worldwide Gross (for older films)
Thousands of Older movies (before weekly boxoffice reports were computerized and disseminated) have a current display on the title's IMDb home page of Worldwide Gross under Boxoffice category that is obviously wrong and misleading. Tiny amounts are shown as the grand totals.
Two I noticed today as follows:
The Night of the Hunter: $6,030
The Fly (1958 original): $1,501.
Who cares? A well-written article is currently on-line discussing The Night of the Hunter, regarding its original reception versus current critical status as a classic. The article lists the $6,030 figure, obviously copied from IMDb, as its original boxoffice gross when released. This is absurd and wrong. Look up any of thousands of old movies and you'll find this same type of error: only ones that were famous and carefully researched have accurate (or at least reasonable) IMDb figures shown: e.g., Gone with the Wind: $402,382,193.
gromit82
Champion
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7.5K Messages
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276.6K Points
25 days ago
Lawrence: I agree with almost everything you have written above, except that I wouldn't want to characterize the online article as "well-written" if it relied upon obviously incorrect data.
In reality, The Night of the Hunter grossed more than its supposed "Worldwide" total of $6,030 in its first week at one theater in Los Angeles (according to Variety), where its box office total at the Fox Ritz was $10,000. (See https://archive.org/details/variety199-1955-08/page/n283/mode/1up?view=theater.) The film's opening week in New York was considered "disappointing" and "barely okay" ... but it brought in $18,000 from one theater, which is almost three times what BOM lists as its all-time worldwide gross. (See https://archive.org/details/variety200-1955-10/page/n8/mode/1up?view=theater.)
I note that the Box Office Mojo page for The Night of the Hunter (https://www.boxofficemojo.com/title/tt0048424/) isn't even consistent with itself, as it shows the following data:
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Michelle
Employee
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17.6K Messages
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314.4K Points
24 days ago
Hi @lawrence_cohn & @gromit82 -
Thanks for your report and comments. I filed a ticket for the appropriate team to further investigate the inconsistencies for the box office information related to The Night of the Hunter (#P175383833).
I have also filed separate ticket to the appropriate team to address the larger raised issue of data quality and accuracy for box office reporting of older titles (pre-1960).
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