--- description: FOR more than 30 years Gone With the Wind has been Hollywood's ultimate picture—ultimate in the Hollywood sense of being the industry's alltime biggest moneymaker. Until last year, the... title: Show Business: The New Champion of Champions image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Show Business: The New Champion of Champions by [TIME](/author/time/) Jan 15, 1973 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Jan 15, 1973 5:00 AM CUT FOR more than 30 years Gone With the Wind has been Hollywood’s ultimate picture—ultimate in the Hollywood sense of being the industry’s alltime biggest moneymaker. Until last year, the only challenger had been The Sound of Music (1965), which leveled off a few million dollars below GWTW. But now Variety reports that in only nine months of 1972, The Godfather grossed a spectacular $81,500,000, surpassing not only Music ($72 million) but also GWTW ($77,030,000). The other leaders in Variety’s compilation: LOVE STORY $50,000,000 THE GRADUATE 48,300,000 DOCTOR ZHIVAGO 47,950,000 AIRPORT 45,300,000 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS 43,000,000 BEN-HUR $40,750,000 MY FAIR LADY 32,000,000 M—A—S—H 31,100,000 MARY POPPINS 31,000,000 BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID 29,300,000 Show Business: The New Champion of Champions ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6840616/show-business-the-new-champion-of-champions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6840616/show-business-the-new-champion-of-champions/"},"headline":"Show Business: The New Champion of Champions","datePublished":"1973-01-15T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-13T10:16:15.720Z","description":"FOR more than 30 years Gone With the Wind has been Hollywood's ultimate picture—ultimate in the Hollywood sense of being the industry's alltime biggest moneymaker. Until last year, the...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6840616/show-business-the-new-champion-of-champions/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6840616/show-business-the-new-champion-of-champions/","name":"Show Business: The New Champion of Champions"}}]}] ```