The problem with Gone with the Wind being the highest grossing movie of all time...

Gone with the Wind is the highest grossing movie of all time. Adjusted for inflation it has made 3.3 billion dollars. Does this sound familiar? Whenever people bring up big summer movies that make a ton of cash there is always someone who throws this out there and to them I say... that's awesome, but let's put that into context. All $ from here on out has been adjusted for inflation.
 
Gone with the Wind was released in 1939 and its initial run lasted until 1943. It made 221 million its first year in limited release and then 285 million over its next 3 years in general release to bring its initial 4 year total to 506 million globally. Combining those 4 years it sold 60 million tickets. So over four years it sold 60 million tickets and made $506 million in the US. Let's compare that to Iron Man 3 that sold roughly 40 million tickets and made 380 million in its first four weeks in the US or The Avengers that sold 50 million and made 532 million and all of a sudden Gone with the Wind isn't looking all that impressive. So where did the rest of Gone with the Wind's gross come from? That would be the eight re-releases in 1947, 1954, 1961, 1967, 1971, 1974, 1989, and 1998 which earned the movie its additional 2.8 billion dollars.
 
So the next time someone throws out how much money Gone with the Wind made keep it mind it took the movie nearly 60 years to reach it’s total. Many of those years took place during a time when alternative entertainment was not as easily accessible as it is today. There was no TV for the first 10 years of the movies run, no movie rentals for the first 40 years, there certainly wasn't Netflix, video games, sports packages, computers, and whatever other endless river of entertainment options we have today.
 
TLDR – Gone with the Wind made 506 million in its first 4 years and had 8 other re-releases over the span of 60 years to bring its total to 3.3 billion.
 
Sources
GWTW wiki
First week and year gross
Inflation Calculator
IM3 4 week total
Avengers 4 week total
 
 
If this doesn't matter to you please feel free to respond with whatever colorful variation of, "Frankly geekRAT, I just don't give a damn!" that you would like.
 
edit* - Some kind redditors pointed out that the 4 year total for GwtW was for the US only so I changed it to reflect that for both movies, I also added The Avenger because it better illustrates my point. Switched need to had in the TLDR because GwtW didn't NEED anything. Fixed the wiki link to actually work. /patchnotes
 
Keep in mind this is not a post about movie quality it's all about the money.