film budgets by est120

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

film budgets

POSTED BY: EST120
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 25, 2005 20:55
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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 5:08 AM

okay, with the announcement of the oscar nominations today, i got curious and poked around at some past winners and nominees and i started thinking about the budgets of the best picture nominees compared with ticket sales. i picked a random year (1990) and compared the budget and gross ticket sales in the US with 2003. here is what i got (name- budget/us ticket sales):

1990:
dances with wolves - 19 million/184 million
ghost- 22 million/217 million
awakenings- NA/55 million
godfather part II- 54 million/66 million
goodfellas- 22 million/46 million

total: (awakenings not included) 117 million/513 million

2003:
LOTR- 96 million/377 million
lost in translation- 4 million/44 million
master and commander- 150 million/94 million
mystic river- 30 million/90 million
seabiscuit- 86 million/120 million

total: (without LOTR) 270 million/384 million
(with LOTR)366 million/761 million

some things to note. in 1990, the return on money spent on the movies was over 4 fold while in 2003, the return was about 2 fold (about 1.5 if you take out LOTR). the only reason i included numbers with and without LOTR is because that trilogy is rather unique in the box office draw.

my question is this, what do people think about the rapidly increasing budgets for films these days? inflation aside, does it really make sense to spend 150 million on a movie? of course, i am ignoring things like worldwide ticket sales and video rentals/sales. are these movies really worth the money that is spent on them? there are higher demands for effects these days. is that causing these huge increases? an average budget of 30 million in 1990 has ballooned to over 73 million in less than 15 years. what do people think is causing these budget increases?

of course, i could be totally off my rocker and just wasted 15 minutes of my time.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 5:27 AM

DIETCOKE

Interesting. Cost have gone up but the quality of the films haven't kept pace (except LOTR.) More money doesn't mean a better film.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 5:57 AM

GWENHARKER

Well, looking at Master and Commander for example, some of the stuff in it does cost alot of money. Extra crew for the water scenes, extra medical crew, transportation, getting the ship...

So I don't think they're doling out money for the hell of it, sometimes the ideas just need a little more money to make it happen w/o cgi, etc. For example, the average boom miker is making $35-$40 an hour for a low budget talk show.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 7:51 AM

MAUGWAI

One of the reason's cost has gone up probably stems from CGI. CGI is usually more expensive than practical effects. After all, look at Lost in Tramslation in cost vs. something with a lot of CGI. That technology didn't exist in 1990.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:07 AM

JADEHAND

Well,
I think it greatly depends on the film. There have been some really good movies that would have suffered if not for big budget special effects. Also, there have been some that (maybe) wereonly considered good because of the big budget special effects. Then of course, there are the ones that no amount of money in special effects could save.
Consider Spider-Man(1&2) without all the special effects. Now I'm not saying either of these were great or that they were bad, but without the big budget, would they have done well?
I think big budget special effects are well worth the costs in great films to achieve the setting. Effects are expensive, they require often large teams of people to create and they have to be paid.
There are of course the other cases where special effects just can't save a film that's bad. Like plastic surgery, you can spend a lot of money to make the wrapping pretty, but it just doesn't help if the inside is trash.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:44 AM

EST120

Quote:
Originally posted by Jadehand:
Well, I think it greatly depends on the film. There have been some really good movies that would have suffered if not for big budget special effects.

true. you are quite right. there are many movies that have come out recently that would not have been possible 15 years ago. still, i wonder if there has been too much of a movement away from character or dialogue driven films towards flashy, effects laden films with little or no plot/character development. of course, that is one the main reasons people here love firefly so much is because of the blend of effects and writing. i guess i feel sad because there are so many movies that have come out which could have been fantastic with better writing. the visuals were there, but the overall package just did not make it.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:48 AM

BADGERSHAT

CGI an effects in general have increased budgets, yes.

But, a HUGE part of the inflated costs is salaries. Big name stars demand big salaries. Big directors demand big salaries. To a lesser degree, it also holds true with editors, composers, cinematographers, etc.

I think Ah-nuld got in the neighborhood of $15-$20 million for the third Terminator movie. His salary alone was like 15% or so of the budget (back in the day, when T2 was made, the studio spent more on the catering during the shoot than the ENTIRE budget of the original Terminator).

Sets also cost a lot--a lot of sets are built of wod, and the last few years with environmental issues and such have upped the costs of lumber. And, of course, gas.

But CGI and salaries can sometime account for HALF the movie's cost (which is, IMMO, revolting).

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 11:32 AM

KNIBBLET

Quote:
Originally posted by BadgersHat:
But, a HUGE part of the inflated costs is salaries. Big name stars demand big salaries.

Blame the producers of "Superman". These guys are the fools who started the whole downward spiral when they paid Marlon Brando $1 million for his GORRAM cameo.

After that, every 'star' wanted bloated money to phone in a performance.

Again, dear God in heaven ... what makes Tom Cruise or anyone worth $20 million dollars? NOTHING. He ain't worth it. Brett Favre ain't worth it. Sammy Sosa ain't worth it. Shak ain't worth it.

One of the things I love about Firefly is that it wasn't a show built around a 'star'. Instead, it was character driven and well written and didn't depend upon some overpriced face to draw in an audience.

"Just keep walkin, preacher man."

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 5:34 PM

MONTANAGIRL

Quote:
Originally posted by est120:
still, i wonder if there has been too much of a movement away from character or dialogue driven films towards flashy, effects laden films with little or no plot/character development. of course, that is one the main reasons people here love firefly so much is because of the blend of effects and writing. i guess i feel sad because there are so many movies that have come out which could have been fantastic with better writing. the visuals were there, but the overall package just did not make it.

I agree. It seems like a lot of people have forgotten that special effects mean nothing unless you've created characters that audiences care about and given them an actual plot in which to tell their story. Yes, the effects in Lord of the Rings were great, but the reason those films did so well was because of the characters and the story. Having cool effects can never make up for a lack of either (eg. Star Wars Episodes I & II). Effects should be used to enhance the story, not replace it.

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Tuesday, January 25, 2005 8:55 PM

CALIGARI

I preface this by saying that I haven't the documentation to quote, but only a few of you are correct. Star paychecks are part of it; an actor's starring track record can, in theory, bring in a certain amount of revenue in terms of box office. Studios will foot the bill for a project if a "name" is attached, and they will mostly pay whatever is needed to get a "name" in a project. _Hide and Seek_ had DiNero attached, which probably cleared a few roadblocks along the way. But we see how that fails with, say, _Alexander_. Part of it is contractual, as in unions, as in a task that could be done by a fella for ten bucks an hour _must_ contractually be given to someone to do for fifteen bucks an hour, or more. And part of it is bookkeeping; that 50 million that is quoted in the trades is probably not what the film cost to make, but what the film cost to make, and advertise, and sell to foreign distributors, and the last I heard a single print of a film costs nearly two grand to strike, and with an initial release of, say, 2000 screens, that's roundabout four million right there, for something that lasts less that six months, the average life of a film print in first run. So no, the money is not really going _into_ the film, but it goes _for_ the film....

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