"The 15 Most Profitable Movies of All Time"

As ranked by CNBC on "return on investment". (I'm not sure the list is complete. Some smaller-budget films I expected to see listed aren't.)

Comments

[Ted Craig]

I'm really surprised Scream isn't on the list.

[JorgXMcKie]

Nice juxtaposition. Tends to show that "the critics" don't give a hoot about the movie-viewing public likes or wants.

I really noticed the dearth of "name actors" in their prime. You know, the one who get paid big bucks just to be in the movie.

And I wonder how many of those with "profit participation" actually saw any of the 'profits'.

Finally, this tends to make the Hollywood end of the business look like a real life "Producers" story.

[Ken]

Deep Throat
Cost: $25,000
Revenue: $600,000,000
This is a 24,000% ROI, almost 4 times that of My Big Fat Greek Wedding's 6,100%.

Blair Witch Project:
Cost: $22,000
Revenue: $240,000,000
This is a 10,909% ROI, almost twice that of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

And it's not like Deep Throat and The Blair Witch Project are some unknown movies, either, so there's really no excuse for this ignorance. These are also just the first two that I knew were more profitable than NBC's "most" profitable movie.

But this is standard sloppiness for NBC reporting. I bet they also wonder why they suck in ratings.