Which US films had the biggest opening weekends?
In this chart, all the box office takings
for the opening weekend have been adjusted for inflation
to the level of the US dollar in 2019.
In 1979, Jaws 2 was dominating.
And it wasn't long before a wave of sci-fi movies overtook it.
First Star Trek, then Superman 2.
Then Star Wars, Return of the Jedi
appeared wiping out all previous records, rapidly overtaken
by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which
held the top slot for three years
until Tim Burton's Batman broke through in 1989.
Nothing else could beat Batman, not
lifelike CGI dinosaurs, or even Jeff Goldblum,
nor Disney's Lion King, until 1995 when
Batman Forever finally tops it.
In 1998 the somewhat mediocre sequel to Jurassic Park
managed to do what the original could not, and took
the top position.
This is the era when the Star Wars franchise is rebooted.
Pixar are hitting their stride with Toy Story 2,
but still, nothing can take over until Harry Potter waves
his wand in 2002, only to be immediately overtaken
by Spider Man.
The Spider Man franchise holds the top spot, only
to be briefly usurped by Johnny Depp playing a pirate,
before Spider Man 3 regains the top spot.
Superheroes continue to dominate,
as Batman returns to number one, this time with Christian
Bale as The Dark Knight.
In 2012, Marvel's Avengers finally knocks Batman
off his perch, continuing the parade
of superheroes in the top position,
until Star Wars takes over in 2016.
Finally, this year, Avengers: End Game
does battle with Star Wars and takes the top spot,
with the largest ever opening weekend of $350m.
I made this animation using the open source
coding platform Observable.
The data came from the website, Box Office Mojo,
and you can see stats for all sorts of films there.
If you have any comments on the video, or any questions,
or things you'd like us to look at in this format
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