This is a personal pet peeve of mine because I have simply never understood the point of comparing movie profits not adjusted for inflation. 1 billion in profit

This is a personal pet peeve of mine because I have simply never understood the point of comparing movie profits not adjusted for inflation. 1 billion in profit is not 1 billion in profit, that's the whole point. People seem to occasionally mention adjusting for inflation like its some obscure comparison, but in reality these numbers are otherwise just 100% meaningless. Its like saying "This movie made more rupees than that movie made dollars!" OK, but who knows what that means if you don't know the relative values? If tomorrow we had hyper-inflation and a bus ticket cost 1 million dollars, would anyone still be impressed by a billion dollars in profit? Would the mediocre comedies netting trillions at the box office be given the title of "most profitable movie" of all time? A dollar in 1977 had the buying power of somewhere between 3 to 4 dollars now. $1/3 billion profit in 1977 dollars is a significantly smaller number.