One of the film’s most persistent legends claims that Deep Throat generated as much as $600 million, a figure that would place a cheaply made adult film among the most lucrative movies in history. The number became part of the film’s folklore, but the economics are difficult to reconcile with its limited theatrical footprint: Deep Throat was banned in large parts of the United States and many other countries, and it generally played through a relatively small network of adult theaters in major cities. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times argued that the FBI’s estimate of roughly $100 million in income was more plausible, while the directors of the documentary Inside Deep Throat defended the higher figure through their own calculations. Critics noted that those calculations rested on layers of speculation, uncertain theater receipts, and later home-video revenue. The film undoubtedly made enormous money by adult-film standards, but the $600 million total remains unverified and is widely treated as an inflated piece of Hollywood-style box-office mythology.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The Inflated $600 Million Deep Throat Fortune That May Never Have Existed
Deep Throat / 1970s
One of the film’s most persistent legends claims that Deep Throat generated as much as $600 million, a figure that would place a cheaply made adult film among the most lucrative movies in history. The number became part of the film’s folklore, but the economics are difficult to reconcile with its limited theatrical footprint: Deep Throat was banned in large parts of the United States and many other countries, and it generally played through a relatively small network of adult theaters in major cities. Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times argued that the FBI’s estimate of roughly $100 million in income was more plausible, while the directors of the documentary Inside Deep Throat defended the higher figure through their own calculations. Critics noted that those calculations rested on layers of speculation, uncertain theater receipts, and later home-video revenue. The film undoubtedly made enormous money by adult-film standards, but the $600 million total remains unverified and is widely treated as an inflated piece of Hollywood-style box-office mythology.
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