https://www.the-numbers.com/news/228540 ... Not-Flukes

Good article on what TGS is and what it isn’t. With such staying power and durability it’s natural to try to make sense of what drives its success, in a historical context

Not a fluke at all. Musicals are an underserved genre, the scale is obviously way too tilted towards white masculine bros and not enough to everything else hence lack of romances and romcoms as well

Well, box office is all about luck anyway. Studios just try their best to give their pictures the best chance. Some even spend millions to secure success. But it's all luck. Nobody really knows what will take off and what will fall flat on its face. The Greatest Showman was a bit of a fluke. Nobody could have predicted its insane legs, but the studio put it out at a time when it is not uncommon for films to catch on and get long legs.

I also never realized how much of a crowd pleaser it is. Only 54% on RT, but 8.0 on IMDb. I know IMDb is hardly a science and can be subject to bias on both sides of the coin, but it's still overall a fair indicator of a film's quality.

Not really. If it opened to $20m and made $150m we’d call it business as normal. These insane legs are driven mostly by a lack of initial interest.