Ian Fleming tops list of most successful authors at the Box Office
Charmed & Dangerous
Posts: 7,358MI6 Agent
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
https://uk.yahoo.com/movies/whos-the-most-successful-author-at-the-box-office-97815942411.html
"How was your lamb?" "Skewered. One sympathises."
Comments
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 -{
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+.
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Granted, there have been a LOT of Holmes movies but most have been what used to be called programmers or B-movies.
#1.TLD/LTK 2.TND 3.GF 4.GE 5.DN 6.FYEO 7.FRWL 8.TMWTGG 9.TWINE 10.YOLT/QOS
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. -{
(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)
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.