Sequel Budget Talk

[springvictory]

I wanna know if the next Superman movie will have a bigger budget than the first one, or lower cause it didnt do as much as they expected. Cause how are they gonna kepp up with the great visual effects from the last one if they don't spend more or equally as much?

[\S/JcDc\S/]

I'm sure a lot of the set work was stored for a sequel. Also, the length of pre-production shouldn't be as long... I'd guestimate around 145 million give or take aout 5 mil.

[buggs0268]

Unless Warner's is paying rent on Fox studio to keep the sets up, which I don't see them doing, then the sets are destroyed. Films do this all the time. They destroy stuff they have to rebuild gain for the sequel. Star Trek Enterprise bridge for all of the films. Mellinium falcone and X wings mock ups for thos films. They used to burn the stuff at Pinewood. I think they just crush it now nad reuse the wood. Scaffolding goes back to the studio shop.

[matrix_ghost]

Not all sets are destroyed. In movies don't continue anymore , the sets are destroyed.
However with follow ups , the sets are usually kept in storage . Harry Potter is a prime example of this. Each time they reuse their sets. Heck even with X2 i think , they used sets from X1.

And i think that they'll go for a budget somewhere around ( or exactly) at 200 million. For big budget blockbusters , the bulk of the money is spent on the VFX because of the complexity and size of those effects. Animating a CG human is far more difficult then animating for example a flaming Johnny Storm in FF . Even tough both characters are flying the CG human torch is easier to animate. You just need to get realistic fire movement and wrap that around digital body.
Compare that with a CG superman :
- realistic hair movement
- realistic skin animation
- realistic cloth animation , using three colors : red , blue and yellow
- realistic body movement; which becomes particularly difficult when doing flying scenes
- realistic facial animation

And that's just getting a working CG superman flying. We aren't even talking about what kind of scenes he'll have to perform.
So i do think that they'll again go with a budget of 200 million. Only this time , with the advances that they've made in the VFX as well as as the fact that they can safe alot of money on sets and so forth. Meaning more money of the budget can be spent on VFX.

Personally , i really don't see why WB doesn't take the Lucas approach .
Just shoot the entire movie digital with blue screen backgrounds. Heck those 200 million can be spend really well if nearly everything is pumped into the VFX budget. It means a) you don't need to build enormous sets which will be either reused or not , b) shooting can brought back to just 3 months MAX as opposed to 6 or 7 months ( didn't SR have an long shooting schedule ) and 3) again having lots more money for the VFX without skyrocketing the budget.


Also , shouldn't this thread be in Untitles Superman Returns Sequel forum ?

[Speedball]

I don't see why it takes 200 million dollars to make a film like Superman Returns, and it "only" took 113 million to make Star Wars Episode III.

[OzzMosiz]

$140-175 million budget (excluding marketting)

http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option...=581&Itemid=99

Originally Posted by SpeedballLives

I don't see why it takes 200 million dollars to make a film like Superman Returns, and it "only" took 113 million to make Star Wars Episode III.

Because George Lucas owns his own special effects company.

[matrix_ghost]

Originally Posted by SpeedballLives

I don't see why it takes 200 million dollars to make a film like Superman Returns, and it "only" took 113 million to make Star Wars Episode III.

Lots of answers there

First and foremost , the VFX.
While it is true that Ep 3 may be bigger in scope in terms of VFX , i think the complexity of the VFX in SR make it more difficult.Like i said in my previous post here , creating a flying human being is much more difficult.You have to create a realistic digital double who has to perform all things that a normal human can't do.

Second , the fact that Ep 3 was filmed almost entirely on a blue screen also plays a role here.
SR has is filmed tradionally with a real set . All these things need to be built .
With a blue screen set , you just say okay this is approx. how big the shot is going to be so we need this amount of space for the actors to move in. Just paint the entire set blue.
Done.
And also the shorter shooting schedule that you have with a blue screen shoot. Normally when you shoot a movie with real sets , you need to reset everything after a take to film that shot again. That could take up hours sometimes. With a blue screen shoot , that time is reduced drastically .
And so because you have less costs due to sets not being built ( there are more things ...) you can spend that money also into the VFX budget ; in the case of SW i think almost 90% of the budget went into the VFX.

Third the time factor plays a role here too.
It's obvious to any person who follows the production of movies , that creating VFX requires time. It takes time to render images . Although technology has come along since the days when those "simple looking " VFX shots of the T-1000 in Terminator 2 required pretty much the entire ILM staff to work on those shots , there is still this immense pressure to meet deadlines.
When a long time is taken to create those VFX , the cost is reduced drastically.
This might be explained due to the fact that studios tend to give VFX firms an incredible short time to create highly detailed VFX scenes . And that apparantly causes the budgets to skyrocket. Compare a movie like the Matrix Revolutions and X3. Matrix revolutions had big and huge VFX sequences , bigger then anything in X3. yet the budget of X3 was somewhere around the 200 million mark whereas that of reloaded was around 140.
Answer was simply the Post. prod schedule. X3 was given a post. prod schedule of ( i think) 9 months whereas matrix revolutions had a combined post prod. scedule of 4 years ( if you count the work done on reloaded as well).
Even with Lord Of The Rings. Return Of The King had a post. prod. schedule of 3 years.
With SR it was no different. It had a post. prod period of less then a year whereas Ep 3 had a post. prod period of 1.5-2 years.
And we aren't even talking about the fact that movies like Ep 3 are building on the software and technologt they created for their previous movies. With Superman , they had to start from scratch.


And finally , yes lucas owns ILM. He can make his workers do almost unreal amounts of VFX , simply because he owns ILM.
If you've ever watched the making of documentary of Return Of The King , you'll see just what kind of pressure WETA had to endure with Peter Jackson.
Those guys would literally spend up to 20 hrs or even sleep at WETA in some cases , just to get the VFX done.It's unreal , but it did pay off.
So it can be a blessing if you own you're own VFX company in that you can basically make you're employees work that much harder in order to create those VFX.
BUuuuuuuttttt , again you're still limited to what you can do if the images just aren't delivered on time. You can stand behind you're employee with a whip but if the computer doesn't render the image fast enough , you're just screwed. Which is also why it can be a big help when you give multiple studios you're VFX shots.

[BareKnucklez]

Originally Posted by matrix_ghost

Lots of answers there

First and foremost , the VFX.
While it is true that Ep 3 may be bigger in scope in terms of VFX , i think the complexity of the VFX in SR make it more difficult.Like i said in my previous post here , creating a flying human being is much more difficult.You have to create a realistic digital double who has to perform all things that a normal human can't do.

Second , the fact that Ep 3 was filmed almost entirely on a blue screen also plays a role here.
SR has is filmed tradionally with a real set . All these things need to be built .
With a blue screen set , you just say okay this is approx. how big the shot is going to be so we need this amount of space for the actors to move in. Just paint the entire set blue.
Done.
And also the shorter shooting schedule that you have with a blue screen shoot. Normally when you shoot a movie with real sets , you need to reset everything after a take to film that shot again. That could take up hours sometimes. With a blue screen shoot , that time is reduced drastically .
And so because you have less costs due to sets not being built ( there are more things ...) you can spend that money also into the VFX budget ; in the case of SW i think almost 90% of the budget went into the VFX.

Third the time factor plays a role here too.
It's obvious to any person who follows the production of movies , that creating VFX requires time. It takes time to render images . Although technology has come along since the days when those "simple looking " VFX shots of the T-1000 in Terminator 2 required pretty much the entire ILM staff to work on those shots , there is still this immense pressure to meet deadlines.
When a long time is taken to create those VFX , the cost is reduced drastically.
This might be explained due to the fact that studios tend to give VFX firms an incredible short time to create highly detailed VFX scenes . And that apparantly causes the budgets to skyrocket. Compare a movie like the Matrix Revolutions and X3. Matrix revolutions had big and huge VFX sequences , bigger then anything in X3. yet the budget of X3 was somewhere around the 200 million mark whereas that of reloaded was around 140.
Answer was simply the Post. prod schedule. X3 was given a post. prod schedule of ( i think) 9 months whereas matrix revolutions had a combined post prod. scedule of 4 years ( if you count the work done on reloaded as well).
Even with Lord Of The Rings. Return Of The King had a post. prod. schedule of 3 years.
With SR it was no different. It had a post. prod period of less then a year whereas Ep 3 had a post. prod period of 1.5-2 years.
And we aren't even talking about the fact that movies like Ep 3 are building on the software and technologt they created for their previous movies. With Superman , they had to start from scratch.


And finally , yes lucas owns ILM. He can make his workers do almost unreal amounts of VFX , simply because he owns ILM.
If you've ever watched the making of documentary of Return Of The King , you'll see just what kind of pressure WETA had to endure with Peter Jackson.
Those guys would literally spend up to 20 hrs or even sleep at WETA in some cases , just to get the VFX done.It's unreal , but it did pay off.
So it can be a blessing if you own you're own VFX company in that you can basically make you're employees work that much harder in order to create those VFX.
BUuuuuuuttttt , again you're still limited to what you can do if the images just aren't delivered on time. You can stand behind you're employee with a whip but if the computer doesn't render the image fast enough , you're just screwed. Which is also why it can be a big help when you give multiple studios you're VFX shots.

They did have the chase scene in Episode 2 thru the city sky, and that alone was alot harder to do then anything in SR.
Especially when you take into account the entire world that has to be created around the action scene.

And that looked alot better then what we got in SR... Also cost much less.

[Mentok]

Originally Posted by buggs0268

Unless Warner's is paying rent on Fox studio to keep the sets up, which I don't see them doing, then the sets are destroyed. Films do this all the time. They destroy stuff they have to rebuild gain for the sequel. Star Trek Enterprise bridge for all of the films. Mellinium falcone and X wings mock ups for thos films. They used to burn the stuff at Pinewood. I think they just crush it now nad reuse the wood. Scaffolding goes back to the studio shop.

Aparantly alot of the stuff from SR was kept intact (or partially intact).

[pickleweed]

Originally Posted by BareKnucklez

They did have the chase scene in Episode 2 thru the city sky, and that alone was alot harder to do then anything in SR.
Especially when you take into account the entire world that has to be created around the action scene.

And that looked alot better then what we got in SR... Also cost much less.

doing a chase scene is nowhere near as complex as superman. mechanical designs are simple for the computer because the computer has a tendency to want to make things look inorganic. sure, there had to be a multitude if vehicle designs, but once thats done, they are put to a path. finishing touches are applied afterwards (pitches, yaws, etc.) superman has to have reaslitic weighted skin textures, so that A: it doesnt look like plastic, and B: intersect with itself, and c: actually move and flex like muscle. his cape is another set of problems. they dont just push the "make cape flap" button. it takes altering of settings like gravity, gust and gail winds in the virtual environment to make it flow exactly as it should.

[Brainiac 2009]

No one here should really talk about the effects of budget for the sequel unless you want the DVD special for SR. You can see where the 200 mil went. Unlike Lucas, Singer built all of his sets from scrap....and didnt just animate them.

Now that all the major sets are constructed, budget alotted for sets can be used in action and other areas.

The CG animation models for Routh are already developed too.

I hope they dont use too much CG in the sequel though. Thats the reason why the car chase in SW Ep2 wasnt that great. It was all animated and cartoony.

While Singer tried to keep the production non-CG for alot of the film's elements, there are some points were a CG superman is obvious. I hope they can eliminate that.

[Freddy_Krueger]

Originally Posted by Brainiac 2009

No one here should really talk about the effects of budget for the sequel unless you want the DVD special for SR. You can see where the 200 mil went. Unlike Lucas, Singer built all of his sets from scrap....and didnt just animate them.

That's a common misconception concerning Lucas. There were plenty of sets in Episodes I and III specifically that were built from scrap. They were set against blue screen, of course, but that was to be expected.