The cost of a modern genre blockbuster

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Ooh, so sorry we didn't have crazy over-the-top action scenes and expensive CGI that today's ADD audience can't live without.

The "ADD" thing is lame, has gotten old and is a lie anyway. Fact is, if you don't spend a lot of money to make and promote big action movies you can't get enough of any kind of people of any age, background or condition to pay to see them in a theater.

There's nothing that was done in Goldfinger that can't be done on HBO now, and all that requires of anyone is a flick of the remote.

Ah, but here's my question. Would audiences stop seeing the latest superhero movies if they all had their budgets slashed by 50%? I don't think people care about special effects nearly as much as studios think they do.

Yes. All that movies have to sell now is spectacle. The first studio to start raising the budget again to show the audience something that everyone else isn't showing them because (for some unknown reason) they've decided to reign in the budgets will blow the others out of the theaters and start the escalation again.

If the studios could make the kind of money that keeps them in business and justify the financial risks they undertake while spending a lot less to achieve that, they would. Fewer movies and bigger movies are made now than fifty years ago, but the percentage of films that actually lose money for their investors is also a great deal lower, for many reasons.

 

[throwback]

The biggest issue for me is not the budget of a film. It's the cost of a movie ticket. For a low wage worker like myself, a movie ticket is one hour of work. So for me, I can no longer afford to see a movie in a cinema, and I have to wait for the film to go to rental.

 

[Warped9]

Why was I unimpressed with a film like Avatar? Because the f/x aspect (as visually interesting as it was) wasn't enough to make up for an uninteresting. It just didn't engage me because I knew near exactly most of what was going to happen long before it happened.

The future will be interesting because things will be in flux. Yeah, big blockbusters seem overrated, and yet some of them have actually been entertaining in a good way.

Looking back:
Batman (1989)
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Iron Man
Captain America
Titanic
Alien
Aliens
The Avengers
Casino Royale
King Kong
Lord Of The Rings trilogy

...and those are just a few.

The problem is when everyone tries to go this route rather than whats best for the project. Because on the flip side there have been quite a few (relatively) low budget films that have also been highly entertaining.

In truth a good Bond film shouldn't have to break the bank, not if the character is mostly true to the source materiel and is well executed. But the budgets usually are extravagant because thats what everyone seems to expect and can't envision it being done any other way.

A good science fiction film also shouldn't necessarily have to break the bank, even a space adventure, not if it's well thought out. But again the convention everyone accepts is that it can't be done any other way.

A fair question is: are the tools and resources at hand being used in the most effective way?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Why was I unimpressed with a film like Avatar?

No idea - it was an incredible movie, and not by accident by far the most successful film in history.

 

[Warped9]

Why was I unimpressed with a film like Avatar?

No idea - it was an incredible movie, and not by accident by far the most successful film in history.

Then you didn't read all of my post because I say why right there.

The story was terribly predictable and derivative as hell. Pretty pictures can't cover that.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Ah, but here's my question. Would audiences stop seeing the latest superhero movies if they all had their budgets slashed by 50%? I don't think people care about special effects nearly as much as studios think they do.

I would be less inclined. I want "super" in my superhero movies. That means the use of powers. That means FX work.

Singers original X-trilogy comes across as half-hearted to me because I know what those characters are capable of, and it's a LOT more than they showed (except for the bridge in X-3...FINALLY we see Magneto being Magneto!).

One way to get more value on the screen would be to move away from Live Action and towards feature quality animation. "Mask of the Phantasm" is the best Batman movie ever made, and cost a fraction of what it would have cost to make "live".

Unfortunately, animation in the US is mired in the "kiddie gheto" perception of the genre.

 

[Kelthaz]

Ah, but here's my question. Would audiences stop seeing the latest superhero movies if they all had their budgets slashed by 50%? I don't think people care about special effects nearly as much as studios think they do.

I would be less inclined. I want "super" in my superhero movies. That means the use of powers. That means FX work.

Oh, I agree. I want fancy SFX and action scenes too, but you really don't have to spend a fortune for that.

Taking inflation into account, The Matrix works out to $81 million and Fellowship of the Ring for $114 million. If you can make something with the quality of Lord of the Rings today for $114 million, why does anyone need to spend more than that?

 

[nvek86]

Taking inflation into account, The Matrix works out to $81 million and Fellowship of the Ring for $114 million. If you can make something with the quality of Lord of the Rings today for $114 million, why does anyone need to spend more than that?

Regarding the budget of the Lord of the Rings films (and also Red Tails or other films directed by Lucas): It helps if the director basically owns the special effects company.

 

[Mr Light]

The cost of the LOTR Trilogy was also spread out over the three films, so that $114 million budget is deceptive.

 

[CaptainCanada]

If you can make something with the quality of Lord of the Rings today for $114 million, why does anyone need to spend more than that?

Lord of the Rings spent $350 million producing all three films at once, which has a lot of financial benefits from consolidation.

If you look at the Matrix sequels, which were produced on the same model, they cost $150 million apiece in contemporary money.

 

[Dantheman]

Aren't the costs on some films also take things like work done on previous iterations of the project into account for the final budget, like with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (work done on proposed Star Trek Phase II series) and Superman Returns (the final budget would probably include work done on the aborted Tim Burton and J.J. Abrams versions)?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Taking inflation into account, The Matrix works out to $81 million and Fellowship of the Ring for $114 million. If you can make something with the quality of Lord of the Rings today for $114 million, why does anyone need to spend more than that?

That's like asking why, if you know a place where you can get a good lunch for 7.50, anyone ever pays more than 7.50 for a meal.

 

[Kelthaz]

Taking inflation into account, The Matrix works out to $81 million and Fellowship of the Ring for $114 million. If you can make something with the quality of Lord of the Rings today for $114 million, why does anyone need to spend more than that?

That's like asking why, if you know a place where you can get a good lunch for 7.50, anyone ever pays more than 7.50 for a meal.

Not really, no. It's more like saying if you know a place where you can get dinner at a five star restaurant for $7.50, you would be willing to pay $10 for dinner at Subway. If Rise of the Planet of the Apes can be made for $93 million, then John Carter, a film with no bankable stars and little name recognition, should not be $250 million. Sure, Avatar costing a fortune makes sense, but Hollywood needs to realize that not every film needs a budget like that. More films need to go the Apes route and keep their spending in check. If John Carter had been made for $93 million it would have been a huge success with guaranteed sequels on the way. Instead, wasteful spending has killed the franchise.

 

[Harvey]

Taking inflation into account, The Matrix works out to $81 million and Fellowship of the Ring for $114 million. If you can make something with the quality of Lord of the Rings today for $114 million, why does anyone need to spend more than that?

It helps save quite a bit of money when your production runs away to Australia or New Zealand.

 

[Gaith]

More films need to go the Apes route and keep their spending in check. If John Carter had been made for $93 million it would have been a huge success with guaranteed sequels on the way.

I don't think you'll find any argument that John Carter was over-budgeted, but every movie is different. ROTPOTA got away with a modest budget and an even more modest ad campaign because of people's lingering fondness for the original movie. Likewise, LOTR would certainly never have been made had the books not been widely respected (if not necessarily all that widely read) among the general public.

Yes, John Carter should have had a leaner budget, a better-known star, and a more experienced director. (Haven't seen it yet, so can't comment on the script.) But with barely any name recognition to the property, a too modest approach would likely have killed it just as dead.

Also, maybe one reason "hard"/speculative sci-fi has been pretty rare lately is because many feel we're living that experience all the time. Social networks, smart phones, the Cloud... we see a movie like The Social Network and call it a recent-historical drama. Ten years ago, however, it would have seemed a bit sci-fi itself.