I’m sure we all have our own ideas on what the most profitable films of all time are, and reading this piece over at Moviefone I was half expecting to see the likes of Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch etc.

How wrong I was. The piece references a list compiled by CNBC and it brings up some quite surprising results not least with the title at the number one spot which elicited the response of “You’re shitting me!” from me.

So here’s the list from 15-1 including their return on investment:

 

15 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – ROI: 1008%

14 – Mrs Doubtfire – ROI: 1160%

13 – There’s Something About Mary – ROI: 1194%

12 – The Hangover – ROI: 1297%

11 – Jaws – ROI: 1308%

10 – Ghost – ROI: 1446%

9 – Home Alone – ROI: 1590%

8 – The Passion of the Christ – ROI: 1749%

7 – American Beauty – ROI: 1780%

6 – Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope – ROI: 1938%

5 – Grease – ROI: 1975%

4 – Pretty Woman – ROI: 2013%

3 – Slumdog Millionaire – ROI: 2520%

2 – E.T. – ROI: 3172%

1 – My Big Fat Greek Wedding – ROI: 6150%

So there it is. I didn’t guess many of those at all going in to the piece. It’s worth noting that all the figures used to compile the list have been adjusted for inflation but still the gap between My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the rest of the list is huge.

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4 COMMENTS

  2. Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project absolutely blow all of these movies away in terms of %ROI. We are talking about over 400,000% ROI on each!

  3. Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project absolutely blow all of these movies away in terms of %ROI. We are talking about over 400,000% ROI on each!

  4. Yeah, when I saw this list I immediately thought of Paranormal activity and did a few calculations. It’s ROI was about 1.28 million % via ww data from box office mojo and using the $15,000 budget of paranormal activity
    the calculation is ($193,355,800-$15000)/15,000 * 100 = 1,288,938.7%

    Even though the CNBC article doesn’t have a date I can only imagine the list was made after 2007 since the hangover is listed on there, a 2009 movie.

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