In Hollywood, is it possible to buy your way to success? As blockbusters get bigger, so do the budgets that come with them. But does a bigger budget lead to more ticket sales and better reviews?
To find out, musicMagpie have built a list of the most expensive movies of all time, looking at their total worldwide gross and Rotten Tomatoes score, to see which have been the most successful: https://musicmagpie.co.uk/
Hollywood’s most profitable blockbusters
While making movies can be expensive, musicMagpie’s research found that this extra investment does pay off, with 83% of movies with a budget of over $50 million generating a positive return on investment!
The most profitable big budget blockbuster in the study was Jurassic Park, which generated an incredible 1649% ROI (with a budget of $63,000,000 and a worldwide gross of $1,038,812,584).
Here are the 5 most profitable big budget blockbusters of all time:
| # | Movie | ROI |
| 1 | Jurassic Park | 1649% |
| 2 | Bohemian Rhapsody | 1627% |
| 3 | Minions | 1568% |
| 4 | Days of Thunder | 1381% |
| 5 | Despicable Me 3 | 1380% |
Does a bigger budget also lead to better reviews?
The 50 best performing movies in our study earned an average 69% Tomatometer and 75% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, showing that commercial success and critical success don’t always go hand in hand.
Coco was the most universally loved movie in the study, with a 97% Tomatometer and 94% audience score, and generated a 456% ROI.
Here are the 10 most popular big budget blockbusters:
| # | Movie | Tomatometer | Audience Score | ROI |
| 1 | Coco | 97% | 94% | 456% |
| 2 | How to Train Your Dragon | 99% | 91% | 300% |
| 3 | Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 3D | 97% | 93% | 417% |
| 4 | Lord of Rings: Two Towers | 95% | 95% | 994% |
| 5 | Zootopia | 97% | 92% | 680% |
| 6 | Up | 98% | 90% | 418% |
| 7 | Dark Knight | 94% | 94% | 394% |
| 8 | Saving Private Ryan | 93% | 95% | 746% |
| 9 | Toy Story 3 | 98% | 89% | 534% |
| 10 | Inside Out | 98% | 89% | 488% |
Want to know more? Head over to musicMagpie to see the full set of data, which looks at almost 1,000 movies: https://musicmagpie.co.uk/
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