what's with huge production budgets?

[Harvey]

Long story short: Paramount's "$94 million" budget, thanks to various international tax breaks, merchandising deals and the like, was actually more like $7 million. Read more here. Of course, from a studio accounting point of view, that $94 million was almost certainly the 'official' figure when it came to dishing out net, rather than gross, profits.

Well, yes and no. The movie did cost $94 million dollars, in terms of a production budget, but you're right in bringing up that article that points out that merchandising, tax breaks (Uwe Boll is famous for exploiting the German tax break on his films, although, for all the crap he produces, he ironically is one of the few using the law in the spirit that it was created for), selling television rights, and selling overseas rights helped to cover most of that cost before production began. It's no surprise to me that studo lawyers obfuscated this information in order to reduce the ammount of money they'd have to pay people for its success.

 

[Holdfast]

I wonder if some of these movie budgets would withstand a full-scale IRS audit. I supsect lots of them are exercises in somewhat creative accounting.

 

[Tulin]

I agree with regards to Wall-E, CG isn't cheap, but TMNT cost roughly 30 million dollars. I know TMNT was done by Imagi (a Korean company) and this helped cut costs, but it's still ridiculous that Wall-E (which admittedly is technically superior) cost 6 times more to create.

No disrespect intended but since I would say "Wall-E" is AT LEAST 6 times better than the awful TMNT movie, I would say it's money well spent.

You pay peanuts, you get little Korean drones working in cubicles making films like that.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

To my eyes, Wall-E looked a lot more detailed, though. Probably took a lot more man hours to do, and as you say, TMNT was done in Korea.

Yeah, Wall-E was definitely a lot more detailed, it's still just staggering though how much more expensive than something in the same genre using similar technology is.

You're not jsut talking about the cost of the software or technology but the people behind it as well, most CGI jobs are done by the higest bidder since they know how little time there is to get a movie ready for the theaters.

Whereas they seemed to take their sweet time on TMNT. The script is copyrighted 2005. The movie came out in 2007.

 

[Arrqh]

Yeah, Wall-E was definitely a lot more detailed, it's still just staggering though how much more expensive than something in the same genre using similar technology is.

You're not jsut talking about the cost of the software or technology but the people behind it as well, most CGI jobs are done by the higest bidder since they know how little time there is to get a movie ready for the theaters.

Whereas they seemed to take their sweet time on TMNT. The script is copyrighted 2005. The movie came out in 2007.

Animated movies and VFX in live action movies are two entirely different things. The former takes much longer to produce (because it's, you know, a whole movie not just some shots) and the latter tends to be done by several different studios in a much shorter time frame. There seems to be some confusion in this thread in who's talking about what...

 

[dragunzng]

I agree with regards to Wall-E, CG isn't cheap, but TMNT cost roughly 30 million dollars. I know TMNT was done by Imagi (a Korean company) and this helped cut costs, but it's still ridiculous that Wall-E (which admittedly is technically superior) cost 6 times more to create.

No disrespect intended but since I would say "Wall-E" is AT LEAST 6 times better than the awful TMNT movie, I would say it's money well spent.

You pay peanuts, you get little Korean drones working in cubicles making films like that.

Somewhat uncalled for, but I do understand what you're trying to say.

I'm not oblivious to the difference in quality, both technically and artistically between Wall-E and TMNT, I know why one costs more than the other, I'm just remarking about how incredible the difference is.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Agree?

Totally agree

I still love my explosions, my scifi, my action and my blcokbusters...but I just wish they could scale back with the over-spending

I still have a hunger for blockbusters

IRONMAN for me was a real winner, because even though the movie had top actors and explosions it delivered great bang for its pretty modest budget of $140 million production.

SupermanReturns was a failure, the movie was over the top and dull, its second weekend only totaled $20 million but it managed to claw back some of the loss with healthy dvd sales. Look at the cost of making movies Waterworld ( $230 Mil adj inflation ) SupermanReturns ($300 Mil), KingKong ($210 Mil) and despite the huge sums of money spent these movies were extremely boring or complete flops.

 

[amdmiami]

Agree?

Totally agree

I still love my explosions, my scifi, my action and my blcokbusters...but I just wish they could scale back with the over-spending

I still have a hunger for blockbusters

IRONMAN for me was a real winner, because even though the movie had top actors and explosions it delivered great bang for its pretty modest budget of $140 million production.

SupermanReturns was a failure, the movie was over the top and dull, its second weekend only totaled $20 million but it managed to claw back some of the loss with healthy dvd sales. Look at the cost of making movies Waterworld ( $230 Mil adj inflation ) SupermanReturns ($300 Mil), KingKong ($210 Mil) and despite the huge sums of money spent these movies were extremely boring or complete flops.

King Kong was a flop? I thought it did quite well at the box office.

 

[drasche]

SupermanReturns was a failure, the movie was over the top and dull, its second weekend only totaled $20 million but it managed to claw back some of the loss with healthy dvd sales. Look at the cost of making movies Waterworld ( $230 Mil adj inflation ) SupermanReturns ($300 Mil), KingKong ($210 Mil) and despite the huge sums of money spent these movies were extremely boring or complete flops.

King Kong made half a billion dollars.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=kingkong05.htm

 

[Jax]

How anyone can say King Kong was a flop needs there head checking last time I check...$550 million off a $207 million budget is good buissness and not too mention the movie was outstanding.

Kong turned out to be very profitable as domestic and worldwide grosses eventually added up to $550 million, becoming the fourth-highest grossing movie in Universal Pictures history. Strong DVD sales also added over $100 million to the grosses.

yeh big failure there.

Superman Returns may of only made $100 million profit or so but thats far from a failure. Who the hell gives any movie a budget that big anyway.

 

[dragunzng]

King Kong wasn't a flop, but it did not perform to expectations based on the director's previous work.

Superman Returns budget was inflated because it incorportated all the previous non-starts, Burton's, Ratner's etc.

 

[TheMasterOfOrion]

Where did I say Kong Flopped? I would hate to have you guys sign contracts because you really need to read more carefully I said

extremely boring OR complete flops.

and the big CGI monkey in KingKong was a complete snorefest, it was self-indulgent monkey business, needed an hour edited from it. KingKong was a really expensive and boring B-movie and the actors really didn't amount to much ie "extremely boring"

Jackson's Kong = KingDonkeyKong

To give credit to Jackson he did create a very marketable movie and the movie made lots of money for the studio. However once an audience as been "had", tricked into watching a snorefest it usually leaves a bitter taste in the audiences mouth. So Kong might have been when Peter Jackson finally jumped the shark.

Other movies like Waterworld etc are different stories, they blow their budget. They are marketed badly, word gets out the movies sucks and suddenly every critic in town wants to trash it. Then "Voilà" you have the perfect ingredients for a Mega-Flop

 

[Jax]

Where did I say Kong Flopped?

To give credit to Jackson he did create a very marketable movie and the movie made lots of money for the studio.

I wasn't refering to you but ever since that movie out so many people have called it a flop which I cannot understand because

Thus, despite the film's inauspicious start at the box office, King Kong turned out to be very profitable. Ticket and DVD sales combined, the film earned well over $700 million,becoming the fourth-highest grossing movie in Universal Pictures history.

LOTR's are rare so I don't see how it underperformed and the critical reception along with it was wonderful as well.