Why 'Gone With the Wind' eclipses both 'Avengers' and 'Avatar'

The most memorable one-liner in GWTW: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

The most memorable one-liner in GWTW: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

Yes, and sums up my feelings about the "point" of the article as well.

Visually impressive, some magnificent performances but very out of date. Not quite as stomach churning as The Birth of a Nation, mind.

Fun fact: the "my hands are dirty too" scene from Empire Strikes Back is 100% lifted from the book version of Gone With the Wind.

George, you ol' smoothie.

$402,000,000 in 1939 → $7,089,082,014.39 in 2017

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1939-dollars-in-2017?amount=402000000

Well over both Avatar and Marvel Endgame box office combined.

$402,000,000 in 1939

Not all $402 million occurred in 1939 - the movie was re-released several times over the following decades

Instead, they took the # of tickets sold over the decades and adjusted to the average 2018 ticket price:

The epic historic romance, set during and after the US Civil War, sold the enormous 215 million tickets in the United States, far and away the record in that category, according to the Internet Movie Database. It's box office was boosted by seven national releases between 1939 and 1974.

"Gone with the Wind" would have sold $1.958 billion worth of tickets today in the U.S. market alone, based on what the National Association of Theatre Owners says was an average U.S. ticket price in 2018 of $9.11.

Worldwide, and with inflation taken into account, the film would have taken in a stunning $3.44 billion, the Guinness Book of World Records has estimated.

I always preferred Raintree County(1957) over GWTW for drama Civil War drama film, but granted it was 18 years later.

Visually impressive, some magnificent performances but very out of date. Not quite as stomach churning as TheBirth of a Nation, mind.

Agreed. I think both films are in two completely different leagues though. I think that Gone with the Wind was more simply a film that was made to the standards that were acceptable at the time, while Birth of a Nation was clearly made to promote racism and was controversial even in 1915.

Gone with the Wind can still be watched and appreciated today, keeping in mind the time that it was made, while Birth of a Nation would really only be acceptable to be screened at Klan rallies.

With a story line based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell, some historians see it as one of the most ambitious and successful examples of Southern revisionism.

Gone With The Wind is a romance story set during the Civil War among Southern elites. “Some historians” want to make the story about slavery. The are many movies about slavery - this one wasn’t one of them.

Gone with the Wind can still be watched and appreciated today, keeping in mind the time that it was made, while Birth of a Nation would really only be acceptable to be screened at Klan rallies.

Aye. I watched it again (GWTW) a year or two ago and it is a giant of a film but there are plenty of scenes that make me feel uncomfortable. The cinematography and special effects are top notch for the time.

1939 was an amazing year for film.

But does Gone With The Wind have RDJ???