Sidebar: Adjusting for Inflation is a pretty terrible metric, not only because the math is pretty clunky and imprecise, but because it also doesn’t account for a large number of competitive factors that contribute to attendance levels fluctuating yearly. It’s a big problem with box-office analysis/discussion in general - the decision to not measure by tickets sold is a built-in failing, but also completely unavoidable at this point due to how marketing-friendly the dollars-earned number was and still is.
Adjusting for Inflation doesn’t level a playing field so much as it just redistributes the lumps according to an overly simplistic formula.
A more accurate way to acknowledge historical context would probably be to measure the distance between how much each movie made compared to how much the average film in its release year made. That way you’re effectively comparing how much more popular each Star Wars film was than the other films that came out in that release year.