Just a feeling, we may need to compare to the box office of 1918. Just saw that Mickey (1918) was the top movie that year.
Mickey was the highest-grossing film of 1918, with a worldwide gross of $8 million and made on a budget of $250,000. It was re-released several times selling 41.8 million tickets becoming the biggest movie of the silent era and had ticket sales that weren't surpassed until Snow White in 1938.
Here's an interesting twist, Mickey was not widely shown for more than a year. It was initially perceived as a flop. After about 2 years, a Long Island theater unexpectedly without any film to screen one night needing something and the film maker gave Mickey. It then became a hit nearly 2 years after it's original release. Other theaters pushed to get it after it proved to be a smash.
So strange to see the biggest film of the year not getting widespread release until 2 years after it's planned original release. Wait a second, TGM was delayed two years during a pandemic year of its original planned release date.
Last pandemic before was in 1918...
102 years later but sometimes history finds a way to rhyme.