Ian Fleming tops list of most successful authors at the Box Office

Charmed & Dangerous

According to a Yahoo Movies infographic, Ian Fleming is the most successful author at the box office by a fair old margin:

https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/whos-the-most-successful-author-at-the-box-office-97815942411.html

Thunderpussy

{[] Congratulations, to Mr Fleming. -{

The Domino Effect

Wow, more than double J K Rowling. I am surprised by the margin.

Barbel

Nice to see that.

Thunderpussy

I also remember an article on the Bond books, pointing out
Just how much employment Fleming created. From the guys
Supplying the wood for the paper to printers, designers to
The book shop staff selling them. Literary thousands of jobs -{

Blackleiter

No surprise, but great news anyway! -{

Silhouette Man

Great news for Mr Fleming and his fans! -{

Barbel

I wonder if "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" is included in the Fleming figures- not that it would make much difference of course! I was surprised that Stephen King wasn't higher, though.

I make no apology for repeating:

The James Bond series is unique in film history. For 50+ years, unqualified box office success for an unbroken series of films, made by the same company with basically the same collection of people (and owing to the inevitable effects of time, their heirs, proteges, and successors) working for them and no sign of stopping- it's the nearest thing to printing money that the film industry has ever seen. We are in uncharted territory- characters such as Sherlock Holmes enter into public domain, stars age and pass their box-office peak*, studios die/merge/change hands.... Bond continues. Imitators have been around since the beginning (The Man From UNCLE, Matt Helm etc) and are still around (Jason Bourne, xXx)... Bond continues. Parodies have flourished (Austin Powers) and died (Derek Flint)... Bond continues. The leading actor changes, the films reflect the zeitgeist... Bond continues.

* with the possible exception of Clint Eastwood- quietly experiencing Hollywood's greatest career: having moved into Oscar-winning direction and still capable of top billing a box-office success at 80+.

Thunderpussy

+1 {[] Bond, keeps on going ! {[]

AlphaOmegaSin

Long live Fleming's Legacy {[]

Loeffelholz

Very gratifying. I was eleven when I read OHMSS for the first time, and was riveted by how electrifying the printed word could be. To say it changed my life would hardly be overstating the point. That Fleming tops this list is only right, IMO {[]

Gassy Man

Haha, the critical thinker in me wonders how this list was compiled. For instance, did it only look at Hollywood and British films/authors? Seems to. Is it based strictly on dollars/pounds or on ticket sales? (Some Bollywood movies sell significantly more tickets, for instance, than many Hollywood films.) Did it only look at authors for whom copyright had not yet run out? (Given how many Holmes iterations there have been, as well as adaptations of works by Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and others, I should think the box office of all those films adds up quickly.) It reminds me of those hyperbolic exclamations by magazines like People of "the most beautiful people in the world" that ethnocentrically only consider the U.S. and one or two other countries. I'm fine with that so long as the article acknowledges it somehow.

Barbel

I'd be very surprised if the various Holmes movies totalled more than the Bonds. Only the recent Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law films made money in the Bond league, the first more than the second.
Granted, there have been a LOT of Holmes movies but most have been what used to be called programmers or B-movies.

Gassy Man

Barbel wrote:

I'd be very surprised if the various Holmes movies totalled more than the Bonds. Only the recent Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law films made money in the Bond league, the first more than the second.
Granted, there have been a LOT of Holmes movies but most have been what used to be called programmers or B-movies.

I'm inclined to agree, but think of how many Holmes films may have been made even outside of England and the U.S., or how many were made and shown before box office tallies were routinely kept. If we adjusted them for today's dollars -- and I'm not sure if that's statistically correct to do -- the totals might be surprising. The same might be said for the many, many versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. I just wish writers like these would strive to be a bit less hyperbolic in their claims, as people may take such information and view it as gospel.

chrisisall

Gassy Man wrote:

The same might be said for the many, many versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.

They might be the equal of Fleming... maybe...

Thunderpussy

No Writer is the Equal of Fleming !!!!!! X-( ( ) )

Charmed & Dangerous

A quick trawl of t'intinet shows there have been around 80 Sherlock Holmes films (discounting the approx 120 extra appearances of the Holmes character in TV shows or where Holmes was an incidental character).

Most of these films were made however between the 20's and 40's. Even the Basil Rathbone films of the 40s made some money above their cost of approx $200,000 to $240,000 and there were 14 of them, so let's say they grossed $4m combined overall. Let's double that for the earlier films, making say $8m perhaps. And the recent Robert Downey films have been by far the most successful, taking in (depending in which source you believe) £1bn in combined receipts.

Still a long way from the £11bn totals from the Bond films. -{

Barbel

Thanks for doing the math, C&D! I suspect the same or similar might apply to the Dracula and Frankenstein movies.

(Can I just mention that I adore Frankenstein films with a passion second only to my love of James Bond films? This is why my dearly beloved is the Bride of Barbel, my son who used to post here before university life took over is Son of Barbel, we live in the House of Barbel, etc)

Gassy Man

Charmed & Dangerous wrote:

A quick trawl of t'intinet shows there have been around 80 Sherlock Holmes films (discounting the approx 120 extra appearances of the Holmes character in TV shows or where Holmes was an incidental character).

Most of these films were made however between the 20's and 40's. Even the Basil Rathbone films of the 40s made some money above their cost of approx $200,000 to $240,000 and there were 14 of them, so let's say they grossed $4m combined overall. Let's double that for the earlier films, making say $8m perhaps. And the recent Robert Downey films have been by far the most successful, taking in (depending in which source you believe) £1bn in combined receipts.

Still a long way from the £11bn totals from the Bond films. -{

Using these figures, though, the amount by the Holmes films is still greater than more than half the films on the article's list.

I'm not suggesting the issue is specifically about the Bond films but about how the list itself was compiled in the first place. It seems pretty myopic. Also, it's unclear if the figures in the article were net totals or were adjusted for inflation. That would change things drastically all around. 2001: A Space Odyssey, for instance, has grossed almost $200 million in worldwide box office due to its release and re-release, and these are not figures adjusted for inflation. The sequel made $40 million, again, not adjusted for inflation. These figures, of course, would convert into fewer pounds.

I suspect the list was complied of gross box office receipts, which are the easiest to calculate, but it still seems a rather inaccurate list, regardless of any ethnocentricity.