Talk:1958 in film

Insertion of box-office gross figures into a chart of theatrical rentals

This chart ranks films by their theatrical rental as opposed to box-office gross, since this was the system in place at the time. Even though the chart isn't cited it uses the theatrical rental amounts as compiled by Variety magazine. An editor has since started inserting box-office grosses into the chart, which renders the chart meaningless since it conflates the two sytems. I can't link online to the Variety charts, but as you can see at the 1958 entry at this chart, the changes mean the chart no longer matches up. Unless the full chart can source box-office grosses for all the films, then it should not not be altered, since having box-office gross for some films and gross rental for others (which is roughly half the box-office gross) makes the chart useless. Betty Logan (talk) 01:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

If it could be uniformly, and reliably, switched to gross, then I guess that would be alright as it gives some degree of consistency with the modern year-in-film articles; but if it's a mix-and-match situation then go for rental as it's consistently present for everything there. All of one or all of the other, but no admixture. GRAPPLE X 02:06, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• Once again, we have another editor (Trekphiler) attempting to add box-office grosses to a chart of gross rentals. While it is not that uncommon for the historical rental figures to cause confusion among editors this is particularly frustrating because I explicitly pointed out that the box-office gross and the gross rental were different non-comparable quantities, but Trekphiler ignored my explanation and reverted me. So to summarize:

1. Box-office gross and gross rental are different non-comparable metrics. The gross rental is a historical metric that was generally used up to the 1970s. After that the box-office gross became the more popular metric for measuring box-office success. Trackers such as Box Office Mojo and The-Numbers generally use box-office gross, but older sources generally use gross rental. When documenting older box-office figures care has to be taken to not confuse the two metrics. We have a glossary at gross rental and it would save a lot of time if editors went and read these things when the links are provided in edit summaries! To give some idea of the problem here Titanic grossed $659 million in the United States which produced a gross rental of $324 million. That is over a $300 million difference, so it is pretty obvious you cannot mix the two quantities in the same chart.
2. My corrections were also reverted on the grounds I had inserted the "lifetime" grosses. I assure you I did not. In my edit I removed Vertigo because that figure includes a reissue, and it finished outside of the top 20 on its initial run, as can be verified in this Hitchcock book. I corrected the gross for Some Came Running with a virtually identical figure from the Eddie Mannix Ledger, which incidentally only runs up to 1962. The third change—the addition of The Inn of the Sixth Happiness—is sourced to Variety and dated to 1960. If a moment is taken to review these sources then it should be apparent these are not "lifetime" grosses.
3. The source that Trekphiler is using to source his data is not only a chart of box-office grosses—as opposed to rentals—but it is also a cumulative chart i.e. it ranks lifetime grosses. If you cut to the top of it Titanic is credited with $659 million (it grossed $600 million on its first run), Star Wars is credited with $461 million (as opposed to its first run gross of £221 million) and E.T. is credited with $435 million ($359 million of its first run). Even if the chart used the right metric this source would not actually be very useful for documenting the actual 1958 runs.

The confusion over the metric is understandable, but to aggressively reinsert the incompatible data while completely failing to address the reason for their removal is not the right approach for addressing the errors in the table. Betty Logan (talk) 02:30, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

♠Your arrogance does you no favors. There's no sourcing for many (most?) of the year lists of top films, & the ones that have sources can't make up their minds if they're relying on lifetime or first-release figures. Neither can you, apparently. And an rv of a sourced, cited edit with nothing more backing up than "I know better" does not persuade me. I'd far rather have it clarified just exactly what the sourced cites are claiming to be referring to. Most of them don't. So, pray tell, unless I want to make this a year-long project (& I have no intention of engaging in anything remotely approaching that, I can assure you), just exactly what in the hell am I supposed to rely on, when the very sources being used don't agree on anything? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 04:33 & 04:34, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

I have taken the time to write out a very detailed explanation of the problem and you are still failing to address the underlying reason I reverted you. Will you please acknowledge whether you understand the difference between a box-office gross and a gross rental yet? Adding box-office grosses to a rentals chart is like adding 100 meter track times to a table of 200 meter track times. It is just nonsensical. I actually agree that many of these lists need fixing and I would like to work collaboratively with you, and if you really want to resolve this dispute and get the article to the state where it ranks films by the 1958 box-office runs then we have to resolve the issue of the metric. Betty Logan (talk) 09:47, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

You're so smart, explain this & this. The very source I was relying on, & it's okay for 1962, which is including rankings after re-release. I'm relying on the very sources everybody else is. And you're giving me a hard time? TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 23:18, 23:19, & 23:20, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

You are not relying on the sources everyone else uses, at least not in the case of this particular chart. And to clarify I reverted you because you were mixing box-office grosses and gross rentals. Also, will you please acknowledge that you now understand the difference between a box-office gross and a gross rental because this is at the root of the problem! This chart uses Variety's rental lists as a source. If you click on the little citation numbers next to the grosses it will tell you where the data comes from. I don't have a problem with your source per se, but you you can't mix two different metrics as you were doing. If you are going to add films by box-office gross you have to convert ALL the films to box-office grosses. For example, we have South Pacific in top place with a rental of $16.3 million in our chart, but according to The Numbers that converts to a box-office gross of $36.8 million. The film at #2, Auntie Mame has a rental of $9.1 million which according to The Numbers converts to a box-office gross of $23.3 million. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is at #3 with $7.8 million, and that converts to a box-office gross of $17.6 million. Then we get to #4, No Time for Sergeants, on a rental of $7.5 million, which The Numbers does not have an entry for. And there we start to run into problems! If we are going to rank 1958 by box-office grosses we need to convert No Time for Sergeants's gross rental to a box-office gross! If you don't convert all the rentals to grosses then the chart will be wrong. Also, please bear in mind that "all-time" and "first run" box-office grosses will only be different if the film has had more than one release. The 1962 chart you link to above is wrong by the way: The Longest Day was actually the biggest film of the year according to contemporary Variety lists, and that gross for Lawrence of Arabia came from reissues. Betty Logan (talk) 15:09, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

1958 (film)

Should films set in 1958 be included on this list? --Traveler100 (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Inappropriate edits

I have concerns regarding the edits by User:Walkingtalkingmammal. Twice now he has removed films from the list with edit summary "adding films/data" when he is clearly removing films from the list as you can see at [1] and [2]. I find these edit summaries highly inappropriate since they are misleading, and furthermore, they do not explain why these films are being removed. After I restored The Naked Maja to the list on the grounds that it is a 1958 film, he subsequently removed the film again without addressing any of my concerns. Since an adequate explanation has not been offered for removing this film, I am going to restore it to the lists, and I would appreciate it if it is not removed without a valid explanation this time. Betty Logan (talk) 16:10, 22 March 2013 (UTC)