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Sunday December 15, 2019
Hollywood Hits Quadfecta at Worldwide Box Office
What's one more than a trifecta? A quadfecta? Is that a thing? Anyway, we hit it this year—or Hollywood did.
These are the biggest worldwide box-office hits ever by MPAA rating:
- G: “Toy Story 4,” $1.07 billion
- PG: “The Lion King,” $1.65 billion
- PG-13: “Avengers: Endgame,” $2.79 billion
- R: “Joker,” $1.05 billion
What do they have in common? Yes, they‘re all 2019 movies.
One might think that happens a lot—movie prices keep going up, China’s movie market keeps getting bigger, etc.—but I doubt it. It's been 10 years, for example, since the last time a new PG-13 king was crowned.
But let's check it out. Has any movie year hit the MPAA rating worldwide quadfecta before?
The last time it could‘ve happened was 2009, when “Avatar” (PG-13) set the worldwide box-office record; but that year, to hone in on just one of the other categories, the highest-grossing R-rated movie worldwide was the comedy hit “The Hangover,” which grossed $467 million, far behind then-leader “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003), at $741 million.
So what about 2003, then? “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” (PG-13) grossed more than $1 billion, after all. But that was still way shy of “Titanic”’s then-record PG-13 total of $1.8 billion.
So back to 1997, when “Titanic” was released? Nope. Biggest PG film worldwide that year was still “E.T.,” from 1982. And at that point, in 1982, PG-13 didn't even exist.
It's never happened before. Not even close.
Domestically, it didn't happen in 2019, either, since while “Toy Story 4” set the North American record for G-rated films, the others didn't break through. The record for PG films is still “The Incredibles 2” from last year (two Pixars!), PG-13 is still “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” from 2015, while R remains “Passion of the Christ” from 2004. It's only on the worldwide stage that this happened.
Keep in mind: All of these worldwide box-office kings are Hollywood movies. Hollywood. That's the city/industry the right-wing is constantly attacking as “liberal.” Because apprently nothing is more liberal, and angers conservatives more, than an American industry dominating a global market.