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

Did anyone mention the fact they used 2 Lamborghini's ? (that I know of).

Blowing up the Brach's Candy Building AKA Gotham General , and paying over 800 extras for that 2 day shoot in particular , not counting the helicopter and crane shots + the Imax camera.

And that I could tell that sequence of scenes didn't get more than 30 seconds , considering the movie was 2hr32min ....

That sure was an expensive 30 seconds.
 
The Mighty Wind said:
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.
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Dude,

8. Gas Prices
 
Ah, Mr. Credible proving the opposite of his namesake again. ;) I kid, I kid.

Seriously though, location shooting is very expensive and much of this was shot on location in Chicago and Hong Kong. Not much sound stage work. And on top of that it relied, as you pointed out, on stunt work. Which you may not realize, but CGI has become the less expensive alternative for action scenes. Flipping real semi-trucks, causing real explosions and diving (with choppers or not) off buildings with cameras instead of making it in a computer costs a lot of money and time. Also, about a third of the movie is shot in IMAX which is a much more expensive camera, film and operating system that they had to create for this sort of thing. But it mostly went to location shooting. And then Bale and Ledger aren't exactly inexpensive actors, either.

So it adds up.
 
And also...

Any of the $180 million that went towards the helicopter scene should be refunded because of the poor CGI that took place upon the falling of the chopper. It looked awful.
 
echostation said:
I think Mr Credible has a point in a way but overall there are hardly ANY directors who can give as much bang for the buck as Michael Bay... seriously, HARDLY any other directors... maybe Peter Jackson, maybe given the 300 million total spent on the trilogy of LOTR and 200 mill for King Kong

But there are HARDLY any other directors out there who are as cost efficient as these two and I'm sure there might be a couple more I'm forgetting, maybe Spielberg? all I'm saying is that ultimately what's the point when you're just taking Transformers as an example... Transformers is again a Michael Bay film, he's one of the few guys who can really make a 1 mill dollar film look like a 20 mill dollar film, he's just one of those types who knows that

And that's not criticizing Nolan, it's obvious to me just how well spent the 180 million was in this picture, TDK WAS HUGE in scope, I could see it totally... It's not like Superman Returns which went just way overboard since Singer sucks generally at fiscal responsibility but Nolan wasn't like that... things were just so well technically, professionally and slickly done you can see it definitely cost at least 160 mill to make the film...

Not everyone is gonna be a jackson or bay in terms of look and even then... Transformers may have had huge scope and action and stuff but much of it was in the background and tackily choreographed...
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Oh cmon you act like only a handful of directors can produce films on a smaller budget but what about Kurt Whimmer who did Equilibrium or Underworld by Len Wiseman both for around 25 million or Robert Rodriguez who did Sin City for 40 million? Just recently Del Toro was praised for the way Hellboy 2 looks which only cost 85 million to make. The 180 million was as well spent on this film as the 150 million spent on the first one which had me practically sleeping. The biggest highlight in that film was the batmobile car chase. Hardly worth 150 million dollars. Another director probably could have made the exact same film for half that.
 
Well...if 180 million is what ya need to give nolan to make what is maybe one of the best films I've ever seen...keep givin' him the cash I say.

Furthermore....are we really comparing this film to transformers??? Dude...after 40 minutes the only thing that kept me awake was the chick, was she cgi???

Iron Man was a real good superhero film, TIH was pretty good, SM II was really good, but they aren't in the sam league...not at all. You can't compare those films to this one, you compare it to The departed, or NCFOM, or Crash...thats the class it's in IMO...who cares about money...it's not about mon ayyyyy, its about making the best damn film of it's kind...besides....when it garners a 300% profit nobodys gonna be worrying about 180 million...all thats gonna be asked of Chris Nolan by WB is when can we get another????
 
^^ Everytime a new superhero film comes out every fan of that character thinks their film is the best superhero ever made. lol. Wasn't BB the best superhero film ever made? Now TDK is the "best superhero movie ever made." LMAO!!!
 
Mr. Credible said:
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.
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Mainly because of the big action sequences being all for real pretty much like: the semi-flip, hospital explosion, etc.
 
batman begins wasnt the best superhero movie ever made, it kinda sucked in my opinion
 
Mr. Credible said:
no, i just have common sense.

i know that a lot of movies shoot in locations like hong kong and chicago.

i know that this wasn't a big special effects movie.

and i know that from what was shown on screen, there was a lot of money wasted if this thing cost $180 million.

and i really don't think that this movie had 700 fx shots. 700 cgi AND practical effects stunts, together, maybe. hell, the matrix revolutions had about 1,000 cgi shots, and i think we all know that that movie was practically head to toe cgi, and it only cost $150 million to make.

sorry, my concensus is that nolan doesn't know how to properly utilize a budget.

i know this movie is the new fanboy wet dream, and i liked the movie quite a bit, too, and i know that it's like, blasphemy to say anything negative about it, nolan, heath or bale on this board, but still. this movie should not have cost this much. no way.
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i didn't need to read beyond the first page.

everyone else was right. the budget was there. it was obvious. i think it was well utilized and i think you underestimate the cost of a production. cg isn't the most expensive thing in the world. so the fact that transformers only cost 140 mil doesn't mean anything.
 
Luchastyle said:
i didn't need to read beyond the first page.

everyone else was right. the budget was there. it was obvious. i think it was well utilized and i think you underestimate the cost of a production. cg isn't the most expensive thing in the world. so the fact that transformers only cost 140 mil doesn't mean anything.
Click to expand...
Yeah this was a huge production, you do remember all the things that happened in the film right? All the stunts, action, shooting on location etc.
 
Mr. Credible said:
what? there wasn't.

two face was probably the biggest one, and it was a very good effect, but even then, i hardly think it cost more than a few million for what little screen time he had. everything else (characters, vehicles, locations) were obviously all real. there may have been a digital batman thrown in during a few of the flying scenes.

i mean, action and cgi are undoubtedly the most expensive things to do. but there just wasn't a lot of big action in this movie. just a few car chases and fist fights, really.
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practical stunts are more expensive than cgi. epic failure.

Mr. Credible said:
then they shouldn't have shot there. that's a ridiculous price to pay.
Click to expand...

they filmed in chicago partly becuse it was finacially wise to do so. the production recieved alot of tax breaks thanks to mayor daley.

you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
 
JaD said:
Yeah this was a huge production, you do remember all the things that happened in the film right? All the stunts, action, shooting on location etc.
Click to expand...

You mean no other film has these things but somehow are able to keep their budgets much lower?
 
Mr. Credible said:
what? there wasn't.

two face was probably the biggest one, and it was a very good effect, but even then, i hardly think it cost more than a few million for what little screen time he had. everything else (characters, vehicles, locations) were obviously all real. there may have been a digital batman thrown in during a few of the flying scenes.

i mean, action and cgi are undoubtedly the most expensive things to do. but there just wasn't a lot of big action in this movie. just a few car chases and fist fights, really.
Click to expand...

Exactly. There wasn't. CGI ain't cheap, but blowing up a CGI building is cheaper than blowing up a real one.
 
Mr. Credible said:
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.
Click to expand...
They had to pay most of the curs on the sets
I think Nicholson is still getting paid for coaching ledger for his role
Beside it’s sad he had to die for trying too hard to imitate the great Nicholson
And here I thought since ledger was playing the Joker he decided to play a joke on us by faking his own death.
That’d be so sweet
But it seem he’s gone for real and is not coming back
I hope I’m wrong.:csad:
 
Perhaps they should freeze him like Disney
And resuscitate him in the future for him to see that his death set a new world record.
 
They blew up a building, traveled to Hong Kong, flipped a Semi-Truck and had the best actors in the world play ever part.

They managed to do this for half of the price of Spiderman 3.
 
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