It’s always been a major bone of contention at FishbowlLA, so we’re glad to see someone else take up the battle cry against the routine practice of failing to adjust for box office inflation.

Ed Driscoll, San Jose editor and political producer for Pajamas Media, notes that the Hollywood Reporter, IFC, and Entertainment Weekly have all been guilty of parroting figures for Woody Allen‘s summer hit Midnight in Paris without placing the numbers in a proper historical context. Only a few journalists, he argues, are digging down to the real story, like the New York Post‘s Kyle Smith in a July 9 blog item:

Annie Hall grossed $38.3 million–in 1977. That’s the equivalent of $143 million today. Midnight in Paris is nowhere near being Woody Allen’s biggest hit. Why does Sony Pictures Classics care? Because they want to be able to run print and (later) DVD ads proclaiming that this is Woody Allen’s biggest hit ever.

Driscoll goes on to show that Manhattan admissions also put Midnight to shame. He says the whole thing is neither a crime, nor a misdemeanor, but still a sad example of “press release journalism.”

Previously on FishbowlLA:
Sony Exec Celebrates Midnight in Kerrville