With Avatar hitting the silver screen late in the year, the top-10 contenders at the movie box office had an easy run at it, sort of. My only complaint is that the original chart does not have Avatar in it… but I can fix that!
This list is from the U.S. Movie market only… which seems short sighted, considering how much a movie can make worldwide! For example: Avatar should be 6th on this list. Avatar made $232.1 million in the U.S. to date, and $637 million worldwide.
Oh, I lied about the top-10. I snagged the top-25 from the chart! Check out all the details after the break:
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| Rank | Movie | Distributor | U.S. Gross |
| 1 | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | Paramount | $402,111,870 |
| 2 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | Warner Bros. | $301,920,409 |
| 3 | Up | Buena Vista | $292,979,556 |
| 4 | The Hangover | Warner Bros. | $277,240,744 |
| 5 | Star Trek | Paramount | $257,730,019 |
| 6 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | Summit Ent. | $230,947,696 |
| 7 | Monsters vs. Aliens | Paramount | $198,351,526 |
| 8 | Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs | 20th Century Fox | $196,573,705 |
| 9 | X-Men Origins: Wolverine | 20th Century Fox | $179,883,016 |
| 10 | Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian | 20th Century Fox | $177,243,721 |
| 11 | The Proposal | Buena Vista | $163,947,053 |
| 12 | Fast & Furious | Universal | $155,064,265 |
| 13 | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | Paramount | $150,201,498 |
| 14 | Paul Blart: Mall Cop | Sony Pictures | $146,336,178 |
| 15 | Taken | 20th Century Fox | $145,000,989 |
| 16 | 2012 | Sony Pictures | $138,451,427 |
| 17 | Gran Torino | Warner Bros. | $138,274,748 |
| 18 | Angels & Demons | Sony Pictures | $133,375,846 |
| 19 | Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins | Warner Bros. | $125,322,469 |
| 20 | Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs | Sony Pictures | $122,560,112 |
| 21 | Inglourious Basterds | Weinstein Co. | $120,831,050 |
| 22 | G-Force | Buena Vista | $119,420,252 |
| 23 | District 9 | Sony Pictures | $115,646,235 |
| 24 | Slumdog Millionaire | Fox Searchlight | $112,643,330 |
| 25 | Watchmen | Warner Bros. | $107,509,799 |
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If you look closely at the top-25 in this chart, Paramount brought the most bucks in with Transformers 2, Star Trek, Monsters vs. Aliens & G.I. Joe with $1,008, 394,913. (I really can’t count that high.)
Warner Bros. brought in $950 mil with Harry Potter, The Hangover, Gran Torino, Terminator and Watchmen.
20th Century Fox earned their bucks from Ice Age 2, Wolverine, Night at the Museum and Taken with Liam Neesom. ( I realy enjoyed Taken.)
The following table on distributors is compiled just from the top 25 list and excluded Avatar:
| $ 1,008,394,913.00 | Paramount | ||
| $ 950,268,169.00 | Warner Bros. | ||
| $ 698,701,431.00 | 20th Century Fox | ||
| $ 656,369,798.00 | Sony Pictures | ||
| $ 576,346,861.00 | Buena Vista | ||
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If we look outside the top 25, the rankings switch a bit for distributors.
| Rank | Distributor | # of Movies | 2009 Gross | Mkt Share |
| 1 | Warner Bros. | 34 | $1,835,821,882 | 19.67% |
| 2 | Paramount Pictures | 14 | $1,413,330,478 | 15.14% |
| 3 | Sony Pictures | 20 | $1,339,296,191 | 14.35% |
| 4 | Buena Vista | 21 | $1,067,389,114 | 11.43% |
| 5 | 20th Century Fox | 20 | $943,452,941 | 10.11% |
| 6 | Universal | 20 | $837,857,015 | 8.98% |
| 7 | Summit Entertainment | 11 | $422,861,136 | 4.53% |
| 8 | Lionsgate | 11 | $362,992,811 | 3.89% |
| 9 | Fox Searchlight | 10 | $245,088,552 | 2.63% |
| 10 | Focus Features | 10 | $156,901,276 | 1.68% |
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- Comedy was the top money maker, bringing in just over $2 billion with 90 movies.
- Aventure brought in $1.8 billion with only 30 projects.
- Action brought in $1.6 billion with 27 movies.
To be honest, Comedy took the top tier by sheer numbers. Adventure movies brought in on average, $60 million per movie, while comedy brought in about just over $22 million per movie.
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Now here’s a fascinating chart that sorts by genre or “creative type”
| Rank | Genre | Films | 2009 Gross | Mkt Share |
| 1 | Contemporary Fiction | 207 | $3,839,993,054 | 42.50% |
| 2 | Fantasy | 39 | $2,039,275,328 | 22.57% |
| 3 | Science Fiction | 24 | $1,341,774,165 | 14.85% |
| 4 | Kids Fiction | 14 | $637,735,142 | 7.06% |
| 5 | Dramatization | 21 | $394,958,212 | 4.37% |
| 6 | Super Hero | 5 | $310,697,302 | 3.44% |
| 7 | Historical Fiction | 31 | $288,448,342 | 3.19% |
| 8 | Factual | 76 | $180,716,382 | 2.00% |
| 9 | Multiple Creative Types | 1 | $644,635 | 0.01% |
But breaking it down per project, it’s a very different ranking:
| Super Hero | $62,139,460.40 |
| Science Fiction | $55,907,256.88 |
| Fantasy | $52,289,110.97 |
| Kids Fiction | $45,552,510.14 |
| Dramatization | $18,807,533.90 |
| Contemporary Fiction | $18,550,691.08 |
| Historical Fiction | $9,304,785.23 |
| Factual | $2,377,847.13 |
| Multiple Creative Types | $644,635.00 |
Whoa… with only 5 films under its belt, the Super Hero movie genre kicked but as far as gross per movie, followed by our favorite genre of Science Fiction movies.
source: Avatar Numers: The Numbers, Chart sources: The Numbers.
