Let's Talk About Movie Budgets

[kguillou]

Greetings!

So this I think has been a hot button topic lately. With so much unrest going on in Hollywood, one of the bubbles I see reaching an unnerving crescendo are the enormous spending these studios are dishing out on these big tentpole blockbusters. The spending on these things has gotten way out of hand, we have had several big movies this year reporting production budgets of over $300 million: Fast X, The Flash, Indiana freaking Jones, Avatar 2 to name a few. There are many others we can list with way way inflated budgets and one begs the question of "Is this NECESSARY?" Where exactly is all this money going? And what is the solution?

One big obvious answer is special effects/CGI. These movies have way too much CGI in them. Is that a potential area where the studios could cut back? Would reverting back to practical effects, practical sets, practical stunts etc be cheaper and most cost effective and still give these movies the visual "pop" they're looking for?

Another area I think are actor salaries. These actors-- although alot of them absolutely deserve to be well compensated--are demanding astornomically high salaries which puts these budgets in the tens of millions before any production budget comes into play. Is this another area where studios could cut down on?

This is a fascinating topic and I want to open the floor to discuss how these big budgets are being broken down and where we need to cut down/reduce on spending OR maybe these are. Maybe some of these movies with these fantastical characters necessitate a hefty special effects budget to deliver the spectacle they need to? Lets discuss.

 

[flickchick85]

CGI in and of itself is not the problem. It’s the WAY it’s used now that is. A lot of movies - particularly those on a production line with a set release date 3 years in advance or whatever - use it as a crutch to skip essential pre-production steps that lead to a smooth production. Don’t yet know how long we’ll need that location? We’ll shoot a few plates and CGI it later. Don’t have time to make that costume? Give ‘em a mo-cap suit and we’ll CGI it later. Instead of being a tool for creativity as CGI started out as, “We’ll CGI it later” has become the ultimate shortcut in Hollywood that allows them to fast forward through pre-production and ultimately makes everything more expensive than it needs to be. One of my film professors always used to say pre-production is the absolute most crucial phase of any film. A well-planned film is a well-budgeted one, plain and simple.

Now, to be fair to our current crop of over-budgeted blockbusters currently being released, they all had their budgets notably inflated by COVID delays, which couldn’t be helped or predicted. The studios had to know they’d be taking some losses on these, just like all businesses affected by the pandemic.

But even then, there’s no reason an Indiana Jones flick needed to be costing upwards of $200mil (if that was its original budget in the first place). And for that, I blame whoever had the bright idea to feature a 20-minute sequence of their CGI-de-aged star. That’s a ridiculous amount of VFX shots for a franchise that has always been the definition of old school nuts and bolts cinema. If you wanted a young Indy adventure, you should have recast or not bothered, imo.

 

[Drizzle]

Eric Idle gave the answer which I believe was also shared in the SAG/WGA Strike thread.


Not all of that money shows up on screen.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

The Avatar films might as well be the only productions out there right now that need, deserve, and can bring a sustainable profit for a 300 million dollar budget.

Yes. Cameron has a long track record of delivering at the box office, so I would make an exception for Avatar.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

CGI in and of itself is not the problem. It’s the WAY it’s used now that is. A lot of movies - particularly those on a production line with a set release date 3 years in advance or whatever - use it as a crutch to skip essential pre-production steps that lead to a smooth production. Don’t yet know how long we’ll need that location? We’ll shoot a few plates and CGI it later. Don’t have time to make that costume? Give ‘em a mo-cap suit and we’ll CGI it later. Instead of being a tool for creativity as CGI started out as, “We’ll CGI it later” has become the ultimate shortcut in Hollywood that allows them to fast forward through pre-production and ultimately makes everything more expensive than it needs to be. One of my film professors always used to say pre-production is the absolute most crucial phase of any film. A well-planned film is a well-budgeted one, plain and simple.

Now, to be fair to our current crop of over-budgeted blockbusters currently being released, they all had their budgets notably inflated by COVID delays, which couldn’t be helped or predicted. The studios had to know they’d be taking some losses on these, just like all businesses affected by the pandemic.

But even then, there’s no reason an Indiana Jones flick needed to be costing upwards of $200mil (if that was its original budget in the first place). And for that, I blame whoever had the bright idea to feature a 20-minute sequence of their CGI-de-aged star. That’s a ridiculous amount of VFX shots for a franchise that has always been the definition of old school nuts and bolts cinema. If you wanted a young Indy adventure, you should have recast or not bothered, imo.

I actually like Indy 5, but it flabbergasted me that after the negative reaction to all of the CGI in Crystal Skull that they decided to triple down on it for this version.

Like you say, the issue isn’t CGI by itself. There is a place for it. You don’t do Rocket Raccoon without it. But they overuse it to replace everything from sets to costumes to regular stunts and it makes these films look like cartoons as well as balloon the budgets.

 

[kguillou]

On the topic of replacing costumes, one of the most egregious examples of this that i can think of is how they CGI Tom Holland’s Spiderman costume in his movies. I remember that behind the scenes footage from Civil War came out where Holland was actually in a physical costume that looked BETTER than the “finished cgi overlay version and its like WHY did they do that?? For what purpose? And Spiderman is usually mostly a cgi cartoon character in all of his MCU appearances instead of Tom or a stunt man in a practical suit. Could’ve saved so much money.

 

[Sithborg]

It was only a matter of time before they started to acknowledge publicly spending over $300 million on a movie. We have probably been here for a while. But, the publicly announced budget is just as much for shareholders as anything. It has been long rumored that the POTC sequels cost over $400.

And I maintain, that with my understanding of accounting and how these movies get financed, is that it is just a money laundering scheme.

 

[dark_b]

$86millions :blush:
Gareth Edwards says he used guerrilla filmmaking methods on The Creator

 

[B]

On the topic of replacing costumes, one of the most egregious examples of this that i can think of is how they CGI Tom Holland’s Spiderman costume in his movies. I remember that behind the scenes footage from Civil War came out where Holland was actually in a physical costume that looked BETTER than the “finished cgi overlay version and its like WHY did they do that?? For what purpose? And Spiderman is usually mostly a cgi cartoon character in all of his MCU appearances instead of Tom or a stunt man in a practical suit. Could’ve saved so much money.

I literally cannot stress, how much I f-ing hate Marvel's recent trend for costumes. This example of Spider-Man is one however what has really been annoying me is these masks/helmets that disappear & reappear out of thin air.

I watched Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania for the first time on Disney+ a few weeks ago & in the final act when Kang's going a bit nuts I was honestly so close to standing up & turning the thing off because of how badly it was getting on my nerves.

Surely it's cheaper to just make a physical mask/helmet & have the actors wear it/remove it as required instead of it appearing/disappearing every 10 seconds because the actor has to say something.

 

[Mani-Man]

I was waiting for the time when finally the budget are a problem and arent justifiable anymore.
Next we need gaming studios to realize that.

My biggest problem is that often, the budget isnt even seen.
It feels more like the budget is thrown around because its there.
Like CGI Blood...what? Who the hell thought that is a good idea?
CGI should help elevate scenes, not dominate them.
You need CGI Blood to enhance scenes? Fine by me but the scene shouldnt be just CGI blood because its faster to do or so.

Its not that i have a problem with "bad" CGI, i grew up in the 90s...we were there when 3d took babysteps.
We have seen it all so dodgy CGI isnt new to me or bothers me too much.

But you still look at movies nowadays and wonder where 200+ million in budget went.
Often movies in general look kind of flat and lifeless when they dont need to.
You have these huge budgets to build sets etc but rely on blue screen till the cows come home.

So much money and so little real creativity.
And the worst...most of the studios dont even pay the good people that work on the CGI well enough and treat them like dirt.

Budgets need to go lower so movies have more wiggle room.
Its insane how we reached the point where most "big" movies have this 1 billion dollar line they need to cross.
Movies need to make 250+ million to break even in this day and age...and that is insane.

We can not go higher because that means we lose creativity and risk in movies...or in games.
You play it safe as possible then because you cant afford it otherwise.
And studios panic too because they invest this money, so they interfere and make changes etc hoping desperately audience will like it.

That all is absolutely no way to move forward.

Movies need less budget, talent needs to be paid better, creativity needs to be on the forefront.

 

[kguillou]

Here's another example:



(Sorry to pick on Spidey so much )

But look at this, they took the TIME to set up, choreograph and film Tobey, Andrew and Tom in their practical suits the statue of liberty landing group shot....only for it to be replaced by three CGI cartoons anyway! Like, what the Heck!?

Like, I get it, one point of CGI is to make something look a little more dynamic--specifically the way a character moves-- more unbelievable and less stilted and wiry. And that obviously was the goal here, to make the three spider-men's landing look very cool and dynamic and not make it look like three actors on wires...but why not just use the CGI to enhance it instead of replace the shot altogether? This is the whole point, CGI should be used to enhance something, the way a character looks and moves, not just replace the actor or actors entirely.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

Forgive me if this becomes a little rambly but I have some things to say on the matter. Firstly, I think blaming VFX on the ballooning budgets may not be justified because VFX companies agree to a flat fee when taking on a film and even if they end up doing twice the work they were originally hired to do because the directors and the producers change their minds 10 times during production, they don't see any extra money from that. I'm guessing most people on this forum have seen the short documentary about the VFX company that was behind the effects of Life of Pi but just in case I'll link to it.



When you see stuff like this then I think it's no wonder that VFX often look unfinished for big movies even though their budgets are astronomical. It's bad management. And this leads me to my next point perfectly explained by James Gunn.


Studios rush movies into production without finished scripts, once again demonstrating that the work of screenwriters isn't valued enough on movie productions, and that starts causing problems down the line. During principal photography directors shoot a ton of material just to cover their bases so they can find the movie later in the edit (because there's no finished script) which takes more time and costs more money. Then they go into the edit and realize that they still don't have the necessary material. Then they have to write additional material, do extensive reshoots and still expect VFX studios to deliver quality shots by the time the movie is set to hit theaters. When Coppola's Apocalypse Now doubled in budget it was called a disaster at the time. Now, it is a Tuesday. Most recently, the Amazon show Citadel was supposed to cost 200M but ended up costing 300M because after shooting the whole thing the producers didn't like what they got and a large part of the show was reshot.

And what adds to that problem is that there are so many blockbusters and only so many directors who are skilled enough to pull them off efficiently (Gunn made a similar point but he was much harsher on the directors). At this point it's Marvel's MO to find a fresh indie director and then attach them to a 200M+ behemoth. Yes, there are some very VFX-savvy directors who have hit it out of the park after only doing smaller movies (the Wachowskis, Peter Jackson, Zack Snyder, Gareth Edwards etc.) but you can't expect that from every director. So we end up with films like Quantumania or The Flash that by all accounts should look much better than they do.

So I personally think that the way to lower budgets is to do more work on the script and pre-production before rolling the cameras. It's hilarious that the one aspect that studios want to cheap out on is the screenwriting part. If the productions are a mess now then imagine what it'll be like once scripts are generated by ChatGPT. It'd be much cheaper to work things out during pre-production instead of reshooting the movie/show multiple times while also making the lives of VFX artists a living hell.

 

[BeserkerHilf]

And that's why GOTG v3 is the only blockbuster film (that I can recall right now) that felt like a completed work. Gunn knows his **** and retains control throughout the entire production.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

And that's why GOTG v3 is the only blockbuster film (that I can recall right now) that felt like a completed work. Gunn knows his **** and retains control throughout the entire production.

He also storyboards everything himself beforehand. So does Snyder.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Getting away from the VFX discussion for a bit, but another issue is that films are way too long. The typical blockbuster type film used to be in that two hour range, more or less. Some less than that, but two hours is a good rough benchmark. Now it is common for them to go three hours or more. That’s fine for LOTR, but your average superhero movie doesn’t need that at all. And when there’s a third of an extra movie being completed, that has to inflate the budget as well. There is also far more waste it seems. Original cuts are running longer and longer and a ton of stuff is being axed after being filmed. These are often scenes that can and should be cut from the script in pre-production. Not in post after they’ve already wasted money filming it.

 

[kguillou]

I agree with @Kahran Ramsus . I mean, I personally love a long meaty movie so long as the movie warrants it and the material is engaging. But yes, not every movie needs to be 3 hours long and I feel like since Endgame proved 3 hours movies could gross billions, studios have allowed their filmmakers to get indulgent with the run times. But yes, that HAS to be costing them money. The more footage you film the longer principal photography is. I think on average, the typical big budget movie takes about 5-6 months to film.

Christopher Nolan always has a finished script with his movies and he films exactly what is in the script, no more no less. There are no directors or extended cuts of nolan's movies that exist.

 

[B]

Getting away from the VFX discussion for a bit, but another issue is that films are way too long. The typical blockbuster type film used to be in that two hour range, more or less. Some less than that, but two hours is a good rough benchmark. Now it is common for them to go three hours or more. That’s fine for LOTR, but your average superhero movie doesn’t need that at all. And when there’s a third of an extra movie being completed, that has to inflate the budget as well. There is also far more waste it seems. Original cuts are running longer and longer and a ton of stuff is being axed after being filmed. These are often scenes that can and should be cut from the script in pre-production. Not in post after they’ve already wasted money filming it.

Couldn't agree more, lengthy 3 hour films, particularly in the superhero movie category, shouldn't be common place. If you've multiple characters with a lot of story to tell, then occasionally fine, but it shouldn't be normal in my opinion. Truth be told if you've that much story to tell you'd probably be better splitting it into 2 films.

Anyways, I also think after about the 2 hour mark if interesting things aren't happening people start watch checking & losing interest. From recent memory Black Panther 2 seemed far too long for it's own good, which begs the question, how much more footage did they shoot that didn't make it into the final version of the film.

 

[kguillou]

Here's the thing, I dont think its a bad idea to save longer extended or director's cuts for the home video release. That gives an extra incentive for people to buy the home video release "come see more footage!" and people are much willing to watch 3-4 hour movies in the comfort of their own home where they can pace themselves, take bathroom breaks, grab a snack etc. But for theatrical releases we should try to make these things lean and mean as long as its not to the detriment of the movie. Some movies are designed from the ground up to be long epics.

 

[DJ Kornphlake]

I would think studio execs would want more movies to get back to the two hour range if not for anything else other than that they could get more screenings of that movie in a day.

 

[-Arya-]

All I’ll add to this discussion is that I deeply wish movies could “look” like they did in the 70’s and 80’s. Great use of lighting, gritty cinematography, and practical effects. I’m talking about early Michael Mann, Scorsese, De Palma, Lynch, Spielberg, Carpenter, Cronenberg etc…

Compare Raiders of the Lost Ark to something like Jurassic World Dominion. Or Mann’s Thief from 1981 to a typical crime/thriller movie today like Extraction or The Gray Man. They feels worlds apart.

 

[Drizzle]

I would think studio execs would want more movies to get back to the two hour range if not for anything else other than that they could get more screenings of that movie in a day.

I'm sure there are plenty who still think that in Hollywood but three out of the top four highest grossing movies worldwide are over three hours so they're probably a lot more lenient about longer runtimes, especially post-Endgame since now practically every other blockbuster is at least 2 hours, 20 minutes.

Hell, you look at the top ten highest grossing movies worldwide and only one of them is shorter than two hours, and not even by much. It's The Lion King remake coming in at 1 hour, 58 minutes.

If it's a movie that the audience really wants to see then the runtime is irrelevant.

 

[Comicbookguy339]

I have to disagree with people who want shorter movies. For example, I feel many MCU movies would have benefited from a longer running time. I miss slow character moments in movies where the audience is allowed to breathe.

 

[Drizzle]

Long runtimes don't bother me, provided that there's a good reason for them. What DOES bother me however is theater chains tacking on 20+ minutes of trailers to movies that already have long runtimes and that's without factoring in the 3-5 minutes of advertisements for their own theater. Like, we're already at your theater, why do we need to see a commercial for it?

 

[Snow Queen]

So long as the movie justifies its runtime, it can be as long as you want as far as I'm concerned. John Wick Chapter 4 just flew by. I expect Oppenheimer will be worth the time as well.

 

[Drizzle]

So long as the movie justifies its runtime, it can be as long as you want as far as I'm concerned. John Wick Chapter 4 just flew by. I expect Oppenheimer will be worth the time as well.

Case in point right there. John Wick 4 was so well paced that I've completely forgotten that it's three hours.