The Biggest Summer Blockbuster Hits of All Time

Everything you ever wanted to know about the biggest summer blockbuster hits, stars, and directors since Jaws in a delicious graphic.

Source: Infographic World

[Editor's Note: Not gonna lie to you folks: We f-ed this one up big time. We could blame the heatwave, we could blame the parameters which vary each year based on Memorial Day, but we'll take the blame ourselves. Thanks for being so vigilant in the comments and pointing out our stupidity. We adjusted the graphic again and we're gonna let this one sit and soak up some more abuse. It, like us, deserves it.]


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Matrix???
on August 16, 2010
MATRIX????
Folks, relax
on July 30, 2010
I don't think the intent of the graphic is to be a scientifically-accurate representation of the presented information. The graphics are there to add some sense of scale and action to what would otherwise be a boring list of numbers - and I think it looks great.
the Spider-Man movies...
on July 22, 2010
were released on the first Friday in May in their respective years. So by your Shrek logic (Memorial Day-Labor Day) those movies shouldn't be here either. Way to be consistent. I'm also curious about how Beverly Hills Cop 2 and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, movies released a year apart and whose grosses are separated by a mere $3 million, somehow have a $76 million difference in adjusted gross. The same issue again in 2000/2001. This chart seems pretty terrible.
Oh, Editor's Note...
on July 22, 2010
You're only making this worse. If you're setting Memorial Day as the start of the summer season, you have to lose the following from your chart: 1986 - Top Gun (5/16), replaced by The Karate Kid Part II (6/20) 1999 – The Phantom Menace (5/19, Memorial Day was the 31st that year), replaced by The Sixth Sense (8/6) 2002 – Spider-Man (5/3), replaced by Signs (8/2) 2004 – Shrek 2 (5/19, Memorial Day the 31st), replaced by Spider-Man 2 (6/30) 2005 – Star Wars III (5/19, Memorial Day the 30th), replaced by War of the Worlds (6/29) 2007 – Spider-Man 3 (5/4), replaced by Transformers (7/3) Save yourselves the headache and just call Shrek a summer movie. If they market it as a summer blockbuster, it’s a summer blockbuster, even if it’s the first week of May.
Excuse my ignorance, but I'm wandering......
on July 22, 2010
What happened to Avatar, Lord of the Ring Trilogy, James Cameron, Peter Jackson and some other films, Directors and actors?
oscars
on July 22, 2010
didnt lord of the rings:return of the king get 11 oscars?
Why
on July 21, 2010
Why is it angled!!?!?! Reading half of it gave me a headache
"R dR R" - Martin Prince
on July 21, 2010
If you double the radius of a circle, its area goes up by a factor of 4. In this infographic, if a movie has twice the budget they double the RADIUS, so the larger movie has an area 4 times larger. D'oh!
At Least
on July 21, 2010
It's not upside-down
More nitpicking
on July 21, 2010
1979 - The Amityville Horror (released in July) grossed 5.5 million more than Alien. Alien would actually be 3rd that summer, after Rocky II as well.
You don't understand math!
on July 21, 2010
As far as I can tell, you are scaling the radius of the circles with the numbers. Then the area of the circle scales like the number squared. So if I movie brought in about 100 times what it cost to make, like Star Wars Ep IV, then the circle you show for Adjusted Gross will be 10,000 bigger than the production budget. Very very misleading.
Aladdin
on July 21, 2010
Also a November movie. Summer 1992's biggest domestic grosser was Batman Returns.
Poorly Adjusted
on July 21, 2010
What were the Adjusted Production Budgets?
Nice Post
on July 21, 2010
I´m newbie but this post is amazzing !! http://microganancia.blosgspot.com
Harry Potter?
on July 21, 2010
Sorcerer's Stone came out in November 2001 so yeah, not a summer movie. Sad to say but summer 2001 should be represented by Shrek.
Harry Potter
on July 21, 2010
Harry Potter came out in November... Which would make Shrek the Summer Blockbuster of 2001
This is...
on July 21, 2010
...fucking hard to read

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