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AV Club Classic – Tom Breihan’s The Popcorn Champs

For decades, the AV Club has fostered and hosted great entertainment journalism. So I find myself willing to forgive its organizational lapses. A recent annoyance is the removal of subcategories, making it difficult to read series that don’t have their own landing page.

As I compiled my list of inspirations for my Infinite Lives article series, which is half Tom Breihan by volume, I noticed how difficult it was to find his excellent 2019-2021 articles on the history of blockbusters, The Popcorn Champs. I also discovered The Avocado’s landing page addressing this problem with his earlier series A History of Violence. A small act of Internet archiving kindness that quietly makes the world a better place. Huh, that seems like something I could spend a little effort on too. So, without further ado:

The Popcorn Champs looks back at the highest grossing movie in America from every year since 1960. In tracing the evolution of blockbuster cinema, maybe we can answer a question Hollywood has been asking itself for more than a century: What do people want to see?