The Dark Knight how in the world did this movie cost $180 million?

[IrishFightin]

okay, i'm officially tired of discussing this. i didn't make this thread to get flamed, i just wanted to ask a question, and i got exactly what i expected: a lot of people blindly defending the movie as "the best masterpiece EVAR BLAH BLAH !! how could you not agree with me?!?!!", mixed in with a few logical responses.

Is your real name, by chance, Michael Bay?

Seriously, I think TDK needed slow mo shots of rachel dawes nude form.But like, those type of shots where nothing pay off.

 

[Superman45]

price of imax film isn't cheap

 

[bunk]

Well as everyone knows; "you get what you pay for".

We got one hell of a movie.

 

[byte19]

done in Chicago!! don't worry, a period piece should be shot there soon.....

 

[Darth-IronMan]

Usually, the production budget does not include marketing.

Studios never release production budgets dude. 99% of the time the figure talked about is the total budget estimated. Studios don't want people to know how much movies really cost for tax and other reasons.

Marketing is always included in the budget for big summer flicks. Marketing for other WB films would be included in this films budget as well. The marketing budget for any film is what it costs internationally and if they didn't include it in the main budget they will pay more Tax, get less tax incentives and less tax back.

 

[the_monk]

You realize that doing real stunts is also extremely expensive? I'm making a short film for around $5000 and I'm spending $500 on one particular stunt shot.

 

[JackBauer24]

Inflation. Ain't it a *****.

 

[CaptainClown]

You realize that doing real stunts is also extremely expensive? I'm making a short film for around $5000 and I'm spending $500 on one particular stunt shot.

Ah don't you just love a budget hehe. My favorite part of making a film is this "IS IT FREE?!"

 

[Closerframe]

First of all lets get things straight here. Just because a movie has lots of CGI doesn't mean it's necessarily more expensive. Examples: Star Wars III: $113 Million, Transformers: $150 Million. You have to include the cost it took to shot on location (Chicago, London, and Hong Kong) buildings used for explosions, CGI, actors getting paid, costumes, etc. Plus movies shot in studios or empty L.A. lots don't cost as much as shooting in an actual city.

 

[the_monk]

They probably had to drop $15 million on the armored car sequence, alone.

Also, studios tend to inflate a budget. Part of it is for marketing purposes. What they tell you isn't always true.

 

[IrishFightin]

You realize that doing real stunts is also extremely expensive? I'm making a short film for around $5000 and I'm spending $500 on one particular stunt shot.

JUdging by OPlogic you need to spend much less than 5 grand.

 

[the_monk]

JUdging by OPlogic you need to spend much less than 5 grand.

Haha, yeah. At least $3000 is going into getting a camera setup. All the actors will be working for free. Movie making is expensive. Even though my actors aren't getting paid, I still have to feed them and reimburse their travel expenses. I'm cutting corners everywhere I can.

 

[TheBat812]

Practical effects (explosions, crashes, which there are TON of) = much more expensive than cgi.

 

[MegaGeek]

I don't think flipping semis is cheap. :P

Or blowing up buildings.

 

[the_monk]

Yeah, the point in avoiding CGI is not to save cost. It's to improve the quality of the movie. Let's face it, these CGI fests have gotten ridiculous.

 

[TheBat812]

Haha, yeah. At least $3000 is going into getting a camera setup. All the actors will be working for free. Movie making is expensive. Even though my actors aren't getting paid, I still have to feed them and reimburse their travel expenses. I'm cutting corners everywhere I can.

Are you shooting with film? With today's consumer HD it's relatively cheap(er) for camera setup.

I'm shooting my own movie as well, and we found consumer HD to be the best choice (only like 600 bucks for a decent one) and really take care in the lighting and such. Only main problem with a small budget is power problems because we can't afford a generator for the lighting and other kinds of equipment.

 

[the_monk]

Are you shooting with film? With today's consumer HD it's relatively cheap(er) for camera setup.

I'm shooting my own movie as well, and we found consumer HD to be the best choice (only like 600 bucks for a decent one) and really take care in the lighting and such. Only main problem with a small budget is power problems because we can't afford a generator for the lighting and other kinds of equipment.

We will be shooting with HD. Consumer HD is not up to par, mostly because of the lack of interchangeable lenses. We'll be renting a mid-level HDV cam and shooting to the card, which gives you full-HD. It's a 2 week rental.

It's basically a short sequence from a feature I wrote. The point of shooting the short is to raise money to finish the rest of the film.

And film would cost waaaaaaaay more.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

I really don't think the film would've looked nearly as good if it was shot on sets rather than location and those locations couldn't have been cheap, the shoot was in Chicago for a long time. A lot of the locations were also in government buildings which probably cost more. Add to that closing down streets and large set piece moments. The armored car chase had to cost a huge amount of money.

Also what needs to be taken into account is the tie-ins which helped the movie recoup some costs even before it opened, like the Dominos and Burger King stuff. It's like Transformers teaming with GM, GM spent nearly their entire year's advertising budget teaming with Transformers.

So yeah, 180 mil does seem like a lot, but it was used well and they make some good deals to recoup costs before even opening weekend.

 

[mystory64]

why in the world did this thread even start?

Yeah just another useless complaint about a great movie.. lol WOW only on the internet...

 

[BatoutofHell]

Hold on, because there aren't any huge all-cgi sequences you can't see where the money went?

Why do you think so many movies go all CGI? You think its cheap to shoot REAL films?

 

[The Mighty Wind]

okay, i'm officially tired of discussing this. i didn't make this thread to get flamed, i just wanted to ask a question, and i got exactly what i expected: a lot of people blindly defending the movie as "the best masterpiece EVAR BLAH BLAH !! how could you not agree with me?!?!!", mixed in with a few logical responses.

Well, I'll try and give a few respectful reasons as for why this movie may have cost so much.

1. The cast was a dream-team of Oscar caliber actors, at least 7 of whom (Bale, Caine, Ledger, Oldman, Freeman, Eckhart, Gyllenhaal) would command fairly hefty paychecks. Likewise Nolan's fee as director would probably be pretty high.

2. Location shooting cost a lot ($45 million). You argue that Nolan should have shot exteriors and simply soundstaged the rest, however one of the constant selling points for The Dark Knight in reviews has been the epic, city wide scope of the story. A lot of this is accomplished through location shooting. Just by simply having the city in the background the scope of the film is much more expansive, and Nolan was unwilling to compromise the quality of his film through a soundstage. Furthermore the trip to Hong Kong would have cost a significant amount, with transportation and filming costs.

3. While the effects are practical rather that CGI, that does not always make them cheaper. Blowing up real buildings is expensive, and even when CGI may have been the cheaper route, the costs are still high for practical effects (such as the flipping semi).

4. The CGI in this movie is a lot more extensive than you likely think, simply because it is so understated. Sure, Two-Face is an obvious point where CGI was used, but every shot of the ferries was largely CGI based (you can probably still find photos of the ferries set which consisted of the ferry entrances with green screens behind to add the rest of the ferries as well as the backgrounds). Also consider the cost of the Sonar sequences.

5. Constructing things like the new suit or the Batpod require a serious amount of money (especially with the latter).

6. As others have mentioned, the IMAX sequences were likely very expensive and cumbersome to film.

7. As others have also pointed out, Christopher Nolan also refuses to utilize a second unit. Quality over costs (which, in this case, seems to result in greater financial gain).

Anyways, that's my basic breakdown, I'm sure I missed a few things, but all in all I wouldn't say that that $180 million was used so poorly.

 

[blitz]

ummm I was expected the budget to be more...I think Nolan utilized his budget very well.
wasn't spiderman 3 like 300 or 350 million, lol.

 

[zanos]

Ok... No. i work in film too and i'm sorry if this comes off as disrespectful, but it seems like in your point of view, if a movie doesn't have computer generated green monsters fighting in New York City or a bunch of CGI robots and iron men running around then they must have wasted their money? They shot this around the world, they have an ensemble cast full of academy award winners/nominees, they do things practically (which costs time, effort and money), they blow a million things up and became the first production to utilize IMAX 70mm film stock in a narrative feature.

Location shooting is no where near as expensive as ppl may think. The budget for shooting Spider-man 2 in NYC made up a very tiny amount of the 200 million budget.

I can't believe anyone with a straight face can say they didn't utilize their money efficiently when most blockbusters that have made this amount of money back its first weekend cost over 200 million.

As far as I can tell only 2 films have cost 200 million to make, T3 and SM2

 

[solidsnake86]

I think indiana jones cost 185 million. In the end who cares, its not our 180 million that was used. Thats something that really fascinates me, how concerned many fans are with the budget. I think some of you guys should be the accountants for these movie companies. The movie looked amazing and the fact that not one scene looked computer generated probably means that the money they spent on CGI (and I'm sure they did) was money well spent.

 

[gdw]

i mean, seriously? $180 million? where did it all go? there was hardly any cgi in the movie, and not a lot of big expensive set pieces/toys/etc... and i doubt bale, ledger, oldman or eckhart's paychecks were THAT big.

transformers was budgeted at $140 million, and it had tons of cgi, and some of the best to date as well. hellboy 2 was only $85 million, and is one of the most lusciously beautiful movies i've ever seen. iron man only cost $140, too.

anyone have any idea how this movie was so damn expensive? i just didn't see it on the screen.

yeah, because ALL money in movies goes towards CGI . . .