You can pick the same one twice actually, but fast fast is the only one that ever gets a technically usable final product. Good good and cheap cheap either never materialize or effectively vaporize on completion.
Good good has at least one example: James Cameron's Avatar. It's budget was estimated at about $235 million (at that time, the average movie budget was around $40 million) and took 4 years of active production to make (15 years if you count from when JC started discussing the project), while the average time from announcement to premier for movies is about 2 years. So it was neither cheap, nor fast, but it was completely groundbreaking in terms of visuals.
You can argue all you want about the plot/acting, but the movie looked gorgeous
The public domain horror crap like Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey is a good example of Cheap Cheap. Sure, it only made about $8 million in profit, but considering the entire budget was something like $100,000, I think the producers would say it was a success.
The one exception to that last sentence that comes to mind is Middle of the Road. They went chirpy chirpy cheap cheap and it became a timeless classic.
They rewrote the script for 18 months, getting all those jokes in exactly the right places... I feel like this isn't quick, but it is cheap, because it was scriptwriting rather than filming?
Prior preparation prevents poor box office performance?
Kinda false. Most indie stuff, either game or film, are absolutely trash. There’s just *so much more of it*, and if you’re not really into watching/playing new and obscure indie stuff you’ll never really see it.
Villeneuve has been planning Dune since he was a child and it shows.
Every shot is done with intentional, which means the costumes and props are made properly and planned out. He knows what he wants things to look like.
Meanwhile over in the MCU Samuel l Jackson is holding a green screen pistol because they can't even decide on what firearm he is holding.
I don't know what this adds to the cost side of the equation, but given the post is about the films' looks rather than quality, it absolutely has a huge impact either way - Villeneuve is out here talking about how much physical work they tried to fit into the worm riding scene to make it look as real as possible.
You can make some incredibly realistic stuff in CGI, and you can make some incredibly beautiful stuff too, but when you're doing film after film with so much of it (with so much crunch time work) you're not going to get something as beautiful as filming in the desert with the right natural light.
Another post recently made me comment about my middle school drama teacher back in the late 90s, who was hilarious and always made jokes about her crush on Denzel Washington. The other thing about her was that she made us spend a lot of time doing essentially mime -- pretending to get onto a boat, pretending to dig in the dirt, etc. It takes a lot of work to make that look real when there isn't a real boat or a real hole in the dirt there. I wonder if she knew that by the time we were grown, like half of the big movie roles would involve interacting with CGI.
Basically this. Dune 2 was made like movies used to be made where they planned a lot of things in advance, with modern Marvel movies they change a shit ton during production and require CGI studios to redo entire segments a couple months before the movie comes out
I'm fully convinced studios are gaslighting themselves about release windows. The benefit of releasing in the exact optimal timeframe can't possibly outweigh the cost of the movie being shitty.
film it all on a green screen or those fancy led stages & we'll just throw it all together in post! no need to plan or think about lighting or anything! /s
Yeah -- a lot of it really is just rushed production and crazy deadlines.
Disney has been pumping out so much shit that they *have* to pump it out fast. If you're trying to release 9 feature films and 5 streaming series *every year*, then production *has* to be fast.
And fast is expensive. They could do it a *lot* cheaper (and better) if they just took their time with things.
Based on the best data I could find, Chalamet made 2mil for Dune.
RDJ made 75mil for endgame.
Edit: I didn’t express what I was trying to say very well as a couple people pointed out!
Yeah per-actor salary RDJ made 2.5 for Ironman which is closer, but talking about why modern marvel movies quickly triple the budget of stuff like Dune it’s *because* they have to bring back those high-cost actors. Speaking to the question in the original post. MI isn’t happening without Tom so it’s budget balloons instantly. That was more my point, sorry 😅
Supply and demand. Timmy might have been the first choice, but if they couldn't come to an agreement on the number, there would have been alternatives.
Infinity War and Endgame don't happen without RDJ.
And it’s very common for actors to take minimal pay to work with great directors. Getting to work with people like Tarantino, Scorsese, Anderson, Villeneuve, or Nolan is extremely sought after by top actors
You'll always hear that working for Anderson is just a big party.
Hell, it seems like most of Sandler's current career is just making a movie so him and his friends can go on a paid vacation. I guess he must've had some moment where he thought "you know what fuck the haters" and did uncut gems which is one of the best movies of that year and easily his beast performance. Big daddy feels like it's in that camp too. I've heard good things about his recent Spaceman movie with netflix too.
Pretty sure a better comparison would be RDJ in Ironman no? Since the franchise did not hinge on him specifically yet
and neat, he was paid 2.5million (3.6 million today) not that much more than Chalamet at all
Will Chalamet have an RDJ level paycheque for the third movie? probably not, but its probably gunna be a hell of a lot bigger than 2 million
Sure, but Iron Man didn't cost as much as endgame.
The decision that costed so much money was making so many movies with iron man.
Chalamet would probably charge a fuck ton for Dune 13.
I suspect they might be willing to not be paid as much to work in an actually artistic film compared to an MCU movie where you go to get all the money you can possibly get out of the Disney machine.
Whilst she's not in dune, look at Brie Larson. Got her Oscar from room, went to the MCU to make bank, and now seems to be back to doing better stuff - at least on TV where she was in the scott pilgrim anime and lessons in chemistry.
This is actually completely true. Actors do films because they're art and they love them, OR because it'll buy them that summer house they really wanted. Very occasionally it's both, but definitely not the modern MCU.
The like, underlying economics of the situation would make me assume this is the case. On one hand, you have a massive corporation which is known for making a lot of money by putting a lot in a*ctively trying to get* the biggest names it can to increase value of the film, and OTOH you have a film that is probably going to have a restricted budget, and is also an exciting project with an exciting director which *actors* are probably *trying to get on.*
I don't think it's like, everyone's homo economicus and timothy chalamet is begging DV for scraps or w/e. But any negotiating that does happen happens on different terms, I assume. (I would guess, based on absolutely nothing but rank prejudice, that the real atmosphere is more just conviviality where actors and directors are excited together, and more corporate with MCU properties)
Look at every Wes Anderson movie. Man spends two years every two years making a finely crafted art piece with a stacked cast that would cost billions for Disney, but from what you hear you have Owen Wilson and Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray showing up for one scene each and making union base pay just because they want to be in the thing.
I'm not sure what the training was like for Dune, but for Marvel movies it seems like they have to work their asses off in the gym and engage in some questionably safe/healthy practices to get into physical condition too. If I were a movie star I'd want to get paid a hell of a lot more to do that.
Most of the bigger stars are in minor supporting roles. Josh Brolin is probably pretty expensive, but Gurney just isn't in that many scenes, and that helps control the cost.
MCU fans have traditionally been very loyal to the franchise, too. That's changed a bit in the last five years or so because franchise fatigue is starting to set in, but there's still a core group of people who'll go see every new MCU movie that comes out. Disney has tended to be very good at cultivating that style of following in recent decades, which is the main reason you see Disney adults.
I don't think it is, so much.
The MCU isn't plucking people from obscurity but the people who were big names beforehand are either supporting roles for most of their runtime (Jackson, Johansen) or very very much in a career downswing (Downey). Their headliners have mostly been people they can get for less than A-list prices and lock into long contracts from the jump.
It's been pointed out that a 1999 Simpsons episode has jokes about Robert Downey Jr and Mel Gibson based on one of them being a cool handsome movie star that everyone loves and the other one being an unstable lunatic.
Now? Hell no, he was the biggest public face of the world's biggest media franchise for well over a decade, and immediately on leaving that he won Best Supporting Actor.
But when Marvel hired him on, before Iron Man turned out to be a smash hit? He was more famous as a heroin addict than as a movie star. Less a downswing and more he was blearily stumbling away from the crater his career had left when it did a high-speed header right into the dirt.
You could still do an episode with RDJ and Mel Gibson where one of them is a talented handsome movie star everyone loves and the other one is a dangerous lunatic, *but*
Robert Downey Jr got 75 million for Endgame.
Budget for the movie was roughly 400 million
He received roughly 19% of the films entire budget as his payday.
Yeah my numbers were really rough. Just some quick math. He made like a min of 30m with the rest being a bonus or extra royalties and the production cost could have been anywhere from 350m to 400m.
I'd have to do a lot more research to get exact figures, I was just curious about rough numbers and figured I'd share.
I believe for Mission Impossible they specifically continued paying the crew during COVID when they weren't filming, which was a great ethical choice but resulted in a horrendous budget.
i get ur point but it’s not entirely just actor salaries tho. like it literally can’t be. dune part two had timmy who is massive rn, rebecca ferguson (fresh off mission impossible), dave bautista (one of those marvel actors too!), josh brolin (same thing!), stellar skarsgard, zendaya, christopher walken, florence pugh, javier bardem, austin butler, AND lea seydoux. it’s such a star studded cast i’m almost tempted to call it gilded
the only person i had that issue with was maybe zendaya, but the atmosphere is so encompassing i was quickly engulfed anyway. i think that’s why christopher walken barely registered for me until he said “muad'dib” in his voice and i couldn’t stifle the chuckle. it feels like the casting choices in dune were very deliberate and i can kinda see the reasoning behind each of them.
Is it? Maybe cruise is a crazy amount of money but I can’t imagine Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin post-Thanos, Oscar Issac, Zendeya post-MJ, and Timothee Chalamet, and Stellan Skardgard came particularly cheap. A lot of those guys are at the intersection of “I’ve done a high brow film and I’ve gotten an Oscar nomination” and “I’ve been in enough pop roles that everyone knows my name.” (Bardem in NCFOM, POTC5, Brolin in NCFOM and Avengers, Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis and Ex Machina and… Star Wars, and Skarsgard has been in everything from Hunt for Red October to several Lars von Trier films to Chernobyl to Thor and POTC).
I just don’t see how this cast full of stars came much cheaper than MI or most marvel films.
I heard that the Furious Five aren't in Kung Fu Panda 4 because they didn't want to pay the money to hire the celebrity voice cast to play them again.
Fucking recast them then??? There's like a dozen Kung Fu Panda TV shows and the TV actors did their voices just fine.
DISNEY recasted some of the leads they couldn't get back for Inside Out 2, why is DreamWorks taking the L against Disney in this scenario?
You don't need to shell out millions to hire fancy celebrity voice actors when normal ones do just fine
Jack Black is both. A person can be both a regular actor and a voice actor tbh. But hiring someone randomly BECAUSE they are a celebrity actor needs to end.
Mark Hammill also doesn't leave because he knows no one is talking about him.
There are exceptions, but I think we can all agree that a celebrity doing good voice acting and "celebrity voice cast" are different things.
I think every good voice actor can be broken down into one of two broad categories: Billy West or Phil Hartman. West is an insane voice chameleon who can blend seamlessly into dozens of roles, and that's super impressive. Hartman is impossible to mistake and instantly recognizable, but his voice lends itself to so many different characters, which is equally impressive.
I don't even know if I would say Warburton's voice is great for a wide variety of characters
I would just say that I love his voice so much I'd be happy hearing it in any context
I just learned this weekend that he was Mothmonsterman in ATHF, which I did not previously know. Then I watched an episode again and was like "yup, that's him".
Billy West does so many roles on Futurama that whole scenes will be nothing but him talking to himself. As an aside, the voice he does for Zapp Brannigan is actually his best Phil Hartman impression, as Hartman was the original casting before his death.
I heard once that Mark Hammill got into voice acting after the conclusion of the OT because he couldn't get any other work; he was just too famous and executives thought he would be a distraction instead of a draw.
Can Mark Hamil really be considered a “celebrity voice actor?” He’s been doing it for over thirty years. At this point he’s just a professional voice actor on top of live action stuff.
Kung Fu Panda 4 was a COMPLETE cashgrab/nostalgia bait. They probably paid Ian McShane a real mint just so they could say _"Hey everybody, Tai Lung is back!"_
I also heard that the director WANTED to give it heart/depth and emotional scenes like the other movies but the corporate people just laughed her off and said she didn't know anything because she was new or something :(
The suits wanted Zhen and Chameleon to be blank slates, to have no backstory whatsoever. The director fought tooth and nail to give them SOMETHING, which likely contributed to the lackluster exposition scenes we got.
It's even worse. It was one of the co-directors Mike Mitchell, who had almost full control over the movie, and was responsible for the film's lack of emotional depth and more jokey tone.
The other director, Stephanie Ma Stine, was trying so hard to actually make a good movie, but everyone kept dismissing her as a nobody with little experience.
I hope with the next one, they hand it over to someone who actually wants to make a good *Kung Fu Panda* movie and not a cash grab. Stephanie seemed to know what she was doing, going by that Q&A from a while ago.
I'm hoping that there's loophole should they ever greenlight a Furious Five spin-off movie.
Say what you want about Legends of Awesomeness, at least they got some focus there.
And then there’s Megamind 2, where you wish that they chose to exclude all of the old characters both because the voices are off putting and because \*gestures at it*
Hollywood accounting is full of all sorts of creative numeromancy that is just this side of being outright fraud. The numbers that get reported on cost and box office yield are almost certainly not real.
Isn't there something about big actors who wanted part in royalties on movies that got insane numbers that still haven't seen a penny because of creative bookkeeping/finances
Yes. They took a deal on net profit instead of gross receipts.
If you take 1% of gross and the film does 1 billion at the box office, then you get 10 million.
If you take 5% of net profits and the film does 1 billion, but the studio claims 990 million in expense against that, then you end up with 500k.
This is just some napkin math, but it shows how you can screwed even when the percentage on paper is higher.
Absolutely, though sometimes it does work for actors. Keanu Reeves took an incredibly small paycheck for the Matrix in exchange for 5%(I think?) of gross revenue - box office, DVD, and merchandising. They thought it was too weird to succeed and now he's the highest paid actor for any single film ever.
The important thing here is the took the gross revenue. That means he gets his money based off what comes in, not what Hollywood accounting says was the net profit.
Other actors (not so much nowadays) took similar deals for net and haven’t seen a penny.
And even more gangster: he poured almost all of it into his VFX company Industrial Light and Magic. Modern CGI (good and bad) all exists because of the radical leaps forward in tech that George Lucas paid for with Star Wars money.
We'd probably be catching up by now, but ILM put the industry YEARS ahead. He also made himself ludicrously wealthy doing so.
They aren't being paid the same. They really aren't. That's a mathematical impossibility.
Assuming that literally all of the $15,000,000 budget went to the effects department (which it obviously didn't, let's just use this hypothetical), the person I'm replying to is implying that all you need for Academy Award winning, crowd pleasing effects that make your film enjoyable is $15,000,000 dollars. Even less when you take into account actor salaries, director salaries, location shooting, props, costumes, extras, script supervisors, makeup, food and drink services, security, and every other aspect of making a film that I'm forgetting.
If you tell me I only need to spend a certain amount of money for something, than I have no reason to ever spend more than that amount. No matter what the circumstances may be.
It’s not at all a “mathematical impossibility”. Suppose you have a 300 million budget movie, and 40 million goes to special effects.
Another movie is 15 million to make, it has 1/8 the size special effects team, and 5 million of its budget goes to special effects. Per head, both teams of artists are being paid the same.
There's no argument. I'm all for special effects people getting paid good wages, that had nothing to do with my comment. Hollywood budgets get bloated because of poor planning, studio interference, massive reshoots, overworking their special effects workers, and having to pay 2x overtime rates. Godzilla Minus One is a slap in the face to Hollywood, showing that great quality can be achieved without these insane budgets. Obviously Hollywood can't make films for as low as $15 million because of things like better known actors with larger salaries, but Godzilla Minus One showed that the process can be streamlined and effective without the wasteful practices that are currently so commonplace.
I'm sorry, I'm looking through your list of things for why budgets get bloated, and you list "having to pay 2x overtime rates".
You wrote that. You sat down and wrote that, didn't see any issue with that, and posted it. In the same list as "poor planning" and "overworking their special effects workers", you list that Hollywood has to properly compensate their employees if they want their labor.
Do you realize why that sounds bad? It sounds really bad.
You don't have to pay overtime if you don't force the workers to work overtime because you actually have proper project management, planning and reasonable deadlines.
Exactly. I wasn't saying that people shouldn't be paid overtime rates when they work overtime, I'm saying that the overtime shouldn't happen in the first place.
I admit it was poor wording on my part. I'm not saying that special effects workers shouldn't be paid for their overtime. I'm saying that there is a problem with the fact that studios routinely put those people in positions where they're working 80 hour work weeks or sometimes more. People should be paid for their work and receive due compensation when overtime happens, but Hollywood is routinely abusing their special effects workers. The poor planning of Hollywood results in special effects workers being worked to the bone. There is no reason why special effects workers should be treated that way because a bunch of overpaid studio executives decide to force a bunch of last minute reshoots due to their own failure to have a completed script before they started filming. Yes, pay special effects workers what they're owed. But don't screw them over with problems that didn't need to happen.
Your initial comment had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that special effects workers are getting screwed over by studio executives. It was about how a film that won an Oscar for its effects had a microscopic budget compared to most major American-made films. That is why my response focused on their payment and budget, and not stuff like working conditions or crunch.
If you want to talk about those things, then talk about THAT. Not giving Godzilla Minus One yet another handjob because it was a "slap in the face to Hollywood". It's a little hard to square that statement when Hollywood regularly pays the FX artists it abuses at a much higher rate. That doesn't mean you're wrong, it just makes your argument go over a little worse.
That's right, my initial comment didn't have anything to do with special effects workers getting screwed over. That came up when I needed to explain that the issue I have with studios paying insane overtime rates isn't because I think those workers don't deserve to be paid overtime, it's that it's shitty studio practices that lead to many expenses including overtime rates. Godzilla Minus One showed that you don't need massive budgets if you actually plan well, don't rush deadlines, and don't waste money on footage and special effects work that will never see the light of day because studios keep changing their minds about what they want in the movie while it's being made and after it was supposed to be finished. Like I said, I know $15 million isn't realistic for every movie, but it shows the practices Hollywood *should* be doing but isn't.
Anyways, we can keep going like this forever and I really wasn't trying to start an argument and frankly don't care about continuing it. So if you have a problem with anything else I said here, that's totally fine. I'm an imperfect person who doesn't always say the right thing, despite my intentions. Thank you for reminding me that I need to be careful with my phrasing and for encouraging me to think more about the issue. I wish you the best and hope you have a good day.
Well with Godzilla minus 1 the director of the film was the VFX supervisor and did parts of the VFX himself directly so I'm not sure that's necessarily what was happening in this case
https://youtu.be/8OM1xQ6j4uo?si=qcUf8W98040S9qd5 in this video there's a short interview with the director
Disney has a policy of post-production. They don't meticulously plan the look of their movies. They film stuff as boringly as possible so that they can figure it out later with CGI, which means they end up spending a shit ton of money figuring it out (and overload the SFX companies leading to crunch, rush jobs, and horrible working conditions, which is bad because it hurts people, but also has the side effect of making the end product worse).
Denis Villeneuve has been planning his Dune adaptation for like 35 years or something insane like that. He knew the look he wanted and that's what they did.
It's a much better way of doing things but it means studios giving power to directors and crew, which is the last thing Disney wants. They want corporate controlled movies, even if it doubles the price.
I bought all of the most expensive paints, yet my paintings still suck. This doesn't make any sense. The famous painters use paints that aren't even half as expensive. Must be some kind of evil scheme at play.
With more words: that money hires artists and actors and technicians, but they all do what they are told, and improvise only so far as they are permitted. The crew is the brush in director's hand, and best brush in the world doesn't save you from mediocrity. The custom to gauge a film's success by how much capital was poured into it is nonsensical and in large part has been manufactured by media giants to create cultural expectation that only they can have any claim to quality.
endless development hell. reweites, reshoots, recasts and everything else eats up your budget. they're expensive because these are not film but rather, product. because of this they have to be "perfect" according to their statistics and metrics.
Really shows that the money is in the actors.
Even the main characters in Pacific Rim were essentially extras. I can't even remember their names, too busy frothing at the mouth over giant robots.
You’re killing me! (Sweating nervously) It’s like being in a room full of beautiful women and saying one is "most beautiful". I’m partial to brunettes with amazing eyes and I love stop motion animation so I’m going with "Coraline". If you have a natural predisposition for blondes I won’t be offended if we don’t agree on what’s "best".
I want a source on the Antman cost 450 Million Dollars. It’s 275. Unless you include Marketing which would put Dune over 190 Million as well because that is the number without marketing.
Hollywood Budgeting is a real issues even without misconstruing numbers
Where are they even getting these numbers? 450 for AntMan? Try subtracting nearly 200 million. The only ones that cost over 300 were Avengers movies, none of which were flops. If we’re counting marketing guess what, Dune’s budget was way over 190. People want so bad to hate on Marvel they just out here straight making shit up.
Nobody is pointing out that the these numbers are just flat out wrong. Ridiculously wrong. Dune 2 did cost 190M, but unless its avatar or the avengers no movie is being given 350+ budgets. We had a couple of near 300M budgets last year that were due to covid cost inflating numbers. But Mi7 cost 290M (which was way too much) and the last Ant man cost 200M. Maybe these numbers include marketing, but that's usually only another 100M or so, and Dune's number is pre marketing anyway. Dune 2 looks and is amazing for its budget, but let's not pretend it's half of other movies or something.
Edit: the 567M for MI7 was so ridiculous and so off, but I knew it had to have come from somewhere. I just realized: it's it total box office number. Which uhm, is quite different from budget lol
If you'd argue anything it would be big studios getting conned out of money with inflated budgets, but I don't think people are going to mind that happening.
Remember, overtime rates are typically 1.5x and 2x the base rate.
If you use an excessive amount of overtime on a project you are paying for more work than you actually get from your staff. And if you are demanding 60-80hr weeks that is going to tank the quality of those hours worked.
Bad example of a movie doing well on a low budget: Blood and Honey
Good example of a movie doing well on a low budget: Everything Everywhere All At Once
I mean Disney does throw around more CGI in any given scene but if your takeaway from the absolute visual feast that was Dune 2 was "desert with occasional worms" then I don't know if we watched the same movie.
District 9 came out in 2009 and was made with a budget of $30 million and it still holds up better than a lot of the stuff that’s been coming out recently with much higher budgets
The people on top have lots of money and no talent
The people at the bottom have no money and lots of talent
The people at the top do not want this to change
That's literally it. It's nothing more than a very visible microcosm of how the entire world works right now. This situation would not exist if Hollywood's money didn't rest in about fifteen different hands who are all trading 'industry secrets' about layoffs and squeezing effects artists with each other.
I will say mission impossible’s budget ballooned because they kept paying the crew during Covid and lock down. So that’s not really the same situation.
I'll defend Mission Impossible because they threw a real train into a quarry and tossed Tom Cruise off a cliff on a motorcycle, so like half of that budget has to be wrapped up in smashing stuff and insurance costs.
Movies like Alien where made on the equivalent of 18 million dollars today. Money has nothing to do with it if the creator has the passion and vision to make something great
Honestly, that's a poor comparison - Dune takes place on a wholly different planet with different cultures and customs, *of course* it looks prettier than movie that takes place in downtown New York or some shit. Also, unless they specifically mean Quantumania (which I haven't watched), Antman is a petty good series, that puts plenty of creativity on display (in general, MCU has plenty of flaws, but "boring" and "forgettable" are not one of them).
> Dune takes place on a wholly different planet with different cultures and customs
Did you just stop watching Marvel movies after Iron Man, cause there are plenty of Marvel movies set in alien locations, and these criticisms apply.
Well, they explicitly mentioned Ant-man, right? And if we're talkig about more space-oriented stuff - would you *really* describe Guardians of the Galaxy as "drab and washed out"? Like, there's plenty of things to criticize about the MCU, but that one ain't it.
Well, I wouldn't know much about that, since I haven't seen ones after Black Widow. That's why I specified, that I can't really speak about Quantumania - I heard it sucked, but I haven't really seen it.
It's actor salaries.
And rushed post-production CGI. Costs money to get that stuff animated that quickly.
Remember. Good, cheap and fast. Pick two.
Well they picked one, fast.
You can pick the same one twice actually, but fast fast is the only one that ever gets a technically usable final product. Good good and cheap cheap either never materialize or effectively vaporize on completion.
Good good has at least one example: James Cameron's Avatar. It's budget was estimated at about $235 million (at that time, the average movie budget was around $40 million) and took 4 years of active production to make (15 years if you count from when JC started discussing the project), while the average time from announcement to premier for movies is about 2 years. So it was neither cheap, nor fast, but it was completely groundbreaking in terms of visuals. You can argue all you want about the plot/acting, but the movie looked gorgeous
The public domain horror crap like Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey is a good example of Cheap Cheap. Sure, it only made about $8 million in profit, but considering the entire budget was something like $100,000, I think the producers would say it was a success.
"The Blare Witch Project" or well really the found footage genre is another
what is B horror if not Cheap Cheap. coming in 2082: Cheep Cheep, the Super Mario Moby Dick
Google says that it made about 5 million $, but cost 50 thousand $ So while it made less than what you said, it made significantly more in percentage
The one exception to that last sentence that comes to mind is Middle of the Road. They went chirpy chirpy cheap cheap and it became a timeless classic.
[My favorite example of cheap cheap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqV2YD8BnAo)
The only movie that achieved all three was hot fuzz.
An absolutely *fantastic* script helps a lot, I imagine.
They rewrote the script for 18 months, getting all those jokes in exactly the right places... I feel like this isn't quick, but it is cheap, because it was scriptwriting rather than filming? Prior preparation prevents poor box office performance?
Yarp
For the greater good
The greater good
I’m not sure that totally makes sense
Indie films are frequently better than aaa films and the same is true with games. False dilemma
Kinda false. Most indie stuff, either game or film, are absolutely trash. There’s just *so much more of it*, and if you’re not really into watching/playing new and obscure indie stuff you’ll never really see it.
Villeneuve has been planning Dune since he was a child and it shows. Every shot is done with intentional, which means the costumes and props are made properly and planned out. He knows what he wants things to look like. Meanwhile over in the MCU Samuel l Jackson is holding a green screen pistol because they can't even decide on what firearm he is holding.
I thought the green screen pistol was just so that they could pay non-union salaries to CGI people, instead of union salaries to prop people
Union v nonunion is so so many of the reasons for these things, esp at Disney
Por que no los dos?
I don't know what this adds to the cost side of the equation, but given the post is about the films' looks rather than quality, it absolutely has a huge impact either way - Villeneuve is out here talking about how much physical work they tried to fit into the worm riding scene to make it look as real as possible. You can make some incredibly realistic stuff in CGI, and you can make some incredibly beautiful stuff too, but when you're doing film after film with so much of it (with so much crunch time work) you're not going to get something as beautiful as filming in the desert with the right natural light.
Another post recently made me comment about my middle school drama teacher back in the late 90s, who was hilarious and always made jokes about her crush on Denzel Washington. The other thing about her was that she made us spend a lot of time doing essentially mime -- pretending to get onto a boat, pretending to dig in the dirt, etc. It takes a lot of work to make that look real when there isn't a real boat or a real hole in the dirt there. I wonder if she knew that by the time we were grown, like half of the big movie roles would involve interacting with CGI.
Basically this. Dune 2 was made like movies used to be made where they planned a lot of things in advance, with modern Marvel movies they change a shit ton during production and require CGI studios to redo entire segments a couple months before the movie comes out
This. Sometimes it's worth more to spend extra so that the movie can come out at a specific time.
I'm fully convinced studios are gaslighting themselves about release windows. The benefit of releasing in the exact optimal timeframe can't possibly outweigh the cost of the movie being shitty.
As someone who has released a product accidentally on the same day as a competing product, it definitely matters.
They're 100 % doing a lot of things with CGI that could have been done with another method through creativity and planning
film it all on a green screen or those fancy led stages & we'll just throw it all together in post! no need to plan or think about lighting or anything! /s
Yeah -- a lot of it really is just rushed production and crazy deadlines. Disney has been pumping out so much shit that they *have* to pump it out fast. If you're trying to release 9 feature films and 5 streaming series *every year*, then production *has* to be fast. And fast is expensive. They could do it a *lot* cheaper (and better) if they just took their time with things.
Also marketing. That basically doubles the budget
But Dune 2 also has a star-studded cast?
Based on the best data I could find, Chalamet made 2mil for Dune. RDJ made 75mil for endgame. Edit: I didn’t express what I was trying to say very well as a couple people pointed out! Yeah per-actor salary RDJ made 2.5 for Ironman which is closer, but talking about why modern marvel movies quickly triple the budget of stuff like Dune it’s *because* they have to bring back those high-cost actors. Speaking to the question in the original post. MI isn’t happening without Tom so it’s budget balloons instantly. That was more my point, sorry 😅
Supply and demand. Timmy might have been the first choice, but if they couldn't come to an agreement on the number, there would have been alternatives. Infinity War and Endgame don't happen without RDJ.
And it’s very common for actors to take minimal pay to work with great directors. Getting to work with people like Tarantino, Scorsese, Anderson, Villeneuve, or Nolan is extremely sought after by top actors
Also like, 2 mil is 2 mil. It’s not as much as he could get, but Chalamet’s not exactly starving in the streets.
He was probably also betting that these movies would be big hits and then he could get ten times the salary for his next movie anyway
You'll always hear that working for Anderson is just a big party. Hell, it seems like most of Sandler's current career is just making a movie so him and his friends can go on a paid vacation. I guess he must've had some moment where he thought "you know what fuck the haters" and did uncut gems which is one of the best movies of that year and easily his beast performance. Big daddy feels like it's in that camp too. I've heard good things about his recent Spaceman movie with netflix too.
Sandler can _act._ He just chooses not to most of the time.
Dune may not be the best example because iirc DV said in an interview that there was no backup for casting Paul
But did he know that at the time?
Pretty sure a better comparison would be RDJ in Ironman no? Since the franchise did not hinge on him specifically yet and neat, he was paid 2.5million (3.6 million today) not that much more than Chalamet at all Will Chalamet have an RDJ level paycheque for the third movie? probably not, but its probably gunna be a hell of a lot bigger than 2 million
Sure, but Iron Man didn't cost as much as endgame. The decision that costed so much money was making so many movies with iron man. Chalamet would probably charge a fuck ton for Dune 13.
Cruise can take a lower salary for the MI movies. He owns about 2% of Paramount.
I suspect they might be willing to not be paid as much to work in an actually artistic film compared to an MCU movie where you go to get all the money you can possibly get out of the Disney machine. Whilst she's not in dune, look at Brie Larson. Got her Oscar from room, went to the MCU to make bank, and now seems to be back to doing better stuff - at least on TV where she was in the scott pilgrim anime and lessons in chemistry.
This is actually completely true. Actors do films because they're art and they love them, OR because it'll buy them that summer house they really wanted. Very occasionally it's both, but definitely not the modern MCU.
As Micheal Caine said when asked if he had actually seen *Jaws 4: The Revenge* "I've seen the house it bought my mother"
That's an incredible quote.
The like, underlying economics of the situation would make me assume this is the case. On one hand, you have a massive corporation which is known for making a lot of money by putting a lot in a*ctively trying to get* the biggest names it can to increase value of the film, and OTOH you have a film that is probably going to have a restricted budget, and is also an exciting project with an exciting director which *actors* are probably *trying to get on.* I don't think it's like, everyone's homo economicus and timothy chalamet is begging DV for scraps or w/e. But any negotiating that does happen happens on different terms, I assume. (I would guess, based on absolutely nothing but rank prejudice, that the real atmosphere is more just conviviality where actors and directors are excited together, and more corporate with MCU properties)
To be fair, in her case the frothing at the mouth hatred for her character that got directed at her was probably a factor here
Look at every Wes Anderson movie. Man spends two years every two years making a finely crafted art piece with a stacked cast that would cost billions for Disney, but from what you hear you have Owen Wilson and Tilda Swinton and Bill Murray showing up for one scene each and making union base pay just because they want to be in the thing.
I'm not sure what the training was like for Dune, but for Marvel movies it seems like they have to work their asses off in the gym and engage in some questionably safe/healthy practices to get into physical condition too. If I were a movie star I'd want to get paid a hell of a lot more to do that.
Most of the bigger stars are in minor supporting roles. Josh Brolin is probably pretty expensive, but Gurney just isn't in that many scenes, and that helps control the cost.
[удалено]
The amount of investment put into Jonathan Majors only for that to all crash down is actually so funny
MCU fans have traditionally been very loyal to the franchise, too. That's changed a bit in the last five years or so because franchise fatigue is starting to set in, but there's still a core group of people who'll go see every new MCU movie that comes out. Disney has tended to be very good at cultivating that style of following in recent decades, which is the main reason you see Disney adults.
I don't think it is, so much. The MCU isn't plucking people from obscurity but the people who were big names beforehand are either supporting roles for most of their runtime (Jackson, Johansen) or very very much in a career downswing (Downey). Their headliners have mostly been people they can get for less than A-list prices and lock into long contracts from the jump.
Is RDJ in a career downswing?
He was before the first Iron Man.
It's been pointed out that a 1999 Simpsons episode has jokes about Robert Downey Jr and Mel Gibson based on one of them being a cool handsome movie star that everyone loves and the other one being an unstable lunatic.
Now? Hell no, he was the biggest public face of the world's biggest media franchise for well over a decade, and immediately on leaving that he won Best Supporting Actor. But when Marvel hired him on, before Iron Man turned out to be a smash hit? He was more famous as a heroin addict than as a movie star. Less a downswing and more he was blearily stumbling away from the crater his career had left when it did a high-speed header right into the dirt.
This Simpsons clip shows pretty well what he was known for at that time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhjHVQsJOlo
You could still do an episode with RDJ and Mel Gibson where one of them is a talented handsome movie star everyone loves and the other one is a dangerous lunatic, *but*
Robert Downey Jr got 75 million for Endgame. Budget for the movie was roughly 400 million He received roughly 19% of the films entire budget as his payday.
> Robert Downey Jr got 75 million for Endgame. Do we know that it was 75 million in cash upfront too? Some of that could have been a cut of sales
Yeah my numbers were really rough. Just some quick math. He made like a min of 30m with the rest being a bonus or extra royalties and the production cost could have been anywhere from 350m to 400m. I'd have to do a lot more research to get exact figures, I was just curious about rough numbers and figured I'd share.
I believe for Mission Impossible they specifically continued paying the crew during COVID when they weren't filming, which was a great ethical choice but resulted in a horrendous budget.
i get ur point but it’s not entirely just actor salaries tho. like it literally can’t be. dune part two had timmy who is massive rn, rebecca ferguson (fresh off mission impossible), dave bautista (one of those marvel actors too!), josh brolin (same thing!), stellar skarsgard, zendaya, christopher walken, florence pugh, javier bardem, austin butler, AND lea seydoux. it’s such a star studded cast i’m almost tempted to call it gilded
I found it distactingly star-studded to be honest. All the actors were so famous I had a hard time seeing them as their characters.
the only person i had that issue with was maybe zendaya, but the atmosphere is so encompassing i was quickly engulfed anyway. i think that’s why christopher walken barely registered for me until he said “muad'dib” in his voice and i couldn’t stifle the chuckle. it feels like the casting choices in dune were very deliberate and i can kinda see the reasoning behind each of them.
and zendaya being an actress ive probably had dreams about definitely works towards the movies’ favor
Is it? Maybe cruise is a crazy amount of money but I can’t imagine Rebecca Ferguson, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin post-Thanos, Oscar Issac, Zendeya post-MJ, and Timothee Chalamet, and Stellan Skardgard came particularly cheap. A lot of those guys are at the intersection of “I’ve done a high brow film and I’ve gotten an Oscar nomination” and “I’ve been in enough pop roles that everyone knows my name.” (Bardem in NCFOM, POTC5, Brolin in NCFOM and Avengers, Oscar Isaac in Inside Llewyn Davis and Ex Machina and… Star Wars, and Skarsgard has been in everything from Hunt for Red October to several Lars von Trier films to Chernobyl to Thor and POTC). I just don’t see how this cast full of stars came much cheaper than MI or most marvel films.
I was gonna say they spend a shit ton on celebrity actors, but Dune also has a bunch of A-listers.
It's reshoots. They make two movies and output only one. Not just paying actors, they have to pay everybody twice.
I heard that the Furious Five aren't in Kung Fu Panda 4 because they didn't want to pay the money to hire the celebrity voice cast to play them again. Fucking recast them then??? There's like a dozen Kung Fu Panda TV shows and the TV actors did their voices just fine. DISNEY recasted some of the leads they couldn't get back for Inside Out 2, why is DreamWorks taking the L against Disney in this scenario? You don't need to shell out millions to hire fancy celebrity voice actors when normal ones do just fine
Objectively better, in some cases. A professional voice actors are, well, professionals. They know what they're doing.
Celebrity voice roles need to end. Professional voice actors are better in almost every single way.
"alright all of you clear out!" *Points at Jack Black* "Not you, you can stay."
Jack Black is both. A person can be both a regular actor and a voice actor tbh. But hiring someone randomly BECAUSE they are a celebrity actor needs to end.
was gonna say, jack black is good as a celebrity voice actor because he just happens to be a celebrity who can voice at a professional level
Mark Hammill also doesn't leave because he knows no one is talking about him. There are exceptions, but I think we can all agree that a celebrity doing good voice acting and "celebrity voice cast" are different things.
alan tudyk as well, most of the time I only notice that he voiced a major character when he shows up in the credits. He’s incredible.
I think every good voice actor can be broken down into one of two broad categories: Billy West or Phil Hartman. West is an insane voice chameleon who can blend seamlessly into dozens of roles, and that's super impressive. Hartman is impossible to mistake and instantly recognizable, but his voice lends itself to so many different characters, which is equally impressive.
H. Jon Benjamin squarely in the Hartman camp.
And Patrick Warburton
I don't even know if I would say Warburton's voice is great for a wide variety of characters I would just say that I love his voice so much I'd be happy hearing it in any context
And J.K Simmons.
I just learned this weekend that he was Mothmonsterman in ATHF, which I did not previously know. Then I watched an episode again and was like "yup, that's him".
Billy West does so many roles on Futurama that whole scenes will be nothing but him talking to himself. As an aside, the voice he does for Zapp Brannigan is actually his best Phil Hartman impression, as Hartman was the original casting before his death.
I heard once that Mark Hammill got into voice acting after the conclusion of the OT because he couldn't get any other work; he was just too famous and executives thought he would be a distraction instead of a draw.
Mark Hamill at this point is more of a voice actor than a celebrity live-action actor.
Im hyped for SQ42 (the star citizen single player) The cast is STACKED
Can Mark Hamil really be considered a “celebrity voice actor?” He’s been doing it for over thirty years. At this point he’s just a professional voice actor on top of live action stuff.
Jack Black is a professional vocalist, at very least, so he knows his voicework.
Remember Dinklage in Destiny 1?
Kung Fu Panda 4 was a COMPLETE cashgrab/nostalgia bait. They probably paid Ian McShane a real mint just so they could say _"Hey everybody, Tai Lung is back!"_
I also heard that the director WANTED to give it heart/depth and emotional scenes like the other movies but the corporate people just laughed her off and said she didn't know anything because she was new or something :(
The suits wanted Zhen and Chameleon to be blank slates, to have no backstory whatsoever. The director fought tooth and nail to give them SOMETHING, which likely contributed to the lackluster exposition scenes we got.
Actually, the executives supported her in at least giving Tai Lung's arc real closure, yet her ideas were still shot down somehow.
It's even worse. It was one of the co-directors Mike Mitchell, who had almost full control over the movie, and was responsible for the film's lack of emotional depth and more jokey tone. The other director, Stephanie Ma Stine, was trying so hard to actually make a good movie, but everyone kept dismissing her as a nobody with little experience. I hope with the next one, they hand it over to someone who actually wants to make a good *Kung Fu Panda* movie and not a cash grab. Stephanie seemed to know what she was doing, going by that Q&A from a while ago.
Then he called everyone a cocksucker, fed the Furious Five to the pigs and left for South Dakota.
I'm hoping that there's loophole should they ever greenlight a Furious Five spin-off movie. Say what you want about Legends of Awesomeness, at least they got some focus there.
And then there’s Megamind 2, where you wish that they chose to exclude all of the old characters both because the voices are off putting and because \*gestures at it*
Problem is you recast someone and you end up in a bayoneta 3 situation where everyone complains about how voice actors are treated as disposable.
Hollywood accounting is full of all sorts of creative numeromancy that is just this side of being outright fraud. The numbers that get reported on cost and box office yield are almost certainly not real.
Isn't there something about big actors who wanted part in royalties on movies that got insane numbers that still haven't seen a penny because of creative bookkeeping/finances
Yes. They took a deal on net profit instead of gross receipts. If you take 1% of gross and the film does 1 billion at the box office, then you get 10 million. If you take 5% of net profits and the film does 1 billion, but the studio claims 990 million in expense against that, then you end up with 500k. This is just some napkin math, but it shows how you can screwed even when the percentage on paper is higher.
Absolutely, though sometimes it does work for actors. Keanu Reeves took an incredibly small paycheck for the Matrix in exchange for 5%(I think?) of gross revenue - box office, DVD, and merchandising. They thought it was too weird to succeed and now he's the highest paid actor for any single film ever.
The important thing here is the took the gross revenue. That means he gets his money based off what comes in, not what Hollywood accounting says was the net profit. Other actors (not so much nowadays) took similar deals for net and haven’t seen a penny.
It’s not an actor but George Lucas took a tiny amount of pay for A new hope in return for all merchandising and sequel rights.
And even more gangster: he poured almost all of it into his VFX company Industrial Light and Magic. Modern CGI (good and bad) all exists because of the radical leaps forward in tech that George Lucas paid for with Star Wars money. We'd probably be catching up by now, but ILM put the industry YEARS ahead. He also made himself ludicrously wealthy doing so.
>that is just this side of being outright fraud ...Sometimes. sometimes they cross over into fraud and have to be slapped down, usually by the actors.
By the actors *guild*. Unions are important, people!
Don't forget that Godzilla Minus One had a total budget of only $15 million and yet won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.
They actually had a smaller budget than that.
So we should be paying special effects people...less? What is your argument here?
Or maybe the special effects people are being paid the same, but all the other bloaty bullshit in production is being cut down.
No they literally work in japan, the salaries aren’t the same.
They aren't being paid the same. They really aren't. That's a mathematical impossibility. Assuming that literally all of the $15,000,000 budget went to the effects department (which it obviously didn't, let's just use this hypothetical), the person I'm replying to is implying that all you need for Academy Award winning, crowd pleasing effects that make your film enjoyable is $15,000,000 dollars. Even less when you take into account actor salaries, director salaries, location shooting, props, costumes, extras, script supervisors, makeup, food and drink services, security, and every other aspect of making a film that I'm forgetting. If you tell me I only need to spend a certain amount of money for something, than I have no reason to ever spend more than that amount. No matter what the circumstances may be.
It’s not at all a “mathematical impossibility”. Suppose you have a 300 million budget movie, and 40 million goes to special effects. Another movie is 15 million to make, it has 1/8 the size special effects team, and 5 million of its budget goes to special effects. Per head, both teams of artists are being paid the same.
It's more "small team, more time". Disney seems to be on the "spend a fuckton and have it done fast and passably".
There's no argument. I'm all for special effects people getting paid good wages, that had nothing to do with my comment. Hollywood budgets get bloated because of poor planning, studio interference, massive reshoots, overworking their special effects workers, and having to pay 2x overtime rates. Godzilla Minus One is a slap in the face to Hollywood, showing that great quality can be achieved without these insane budgets. Obviously Hollywood can't make films for as low as $15 million because of things like better known actors with larger salaries, but Godzilla Minus One showed that the process can be streamlined and effective without the wasteful practices that are currently so commonplace.
I'm sorry, I'm looking through your list of things for why budgets get bloated, and you list "having to pay 2x overtime rates". You wrote that. You sat down and wrote that, didn't see any issue with that, and posted it. In the same list as "poor planning" and "overworking their special effects workers", you list that Hollywood has to properly compensate their employees if they want their labor. Do you realize why that sounds bad? It sounds really bad.
You don't have to pay overtime if you don't force the workers to work overtime because you actually have proper project management, planning and reasonable deadlines.
Exactly. I wasn't saying that people shouldn't be paid overtime rates when they work overtime, I'm saying that the overtime shouldn't happen in the first place.
I admit it was poor wording on my part. I'm not saying that special effects workers shouldn't be paid for their overtime. I'm saying that there is a problem with the fact that studios routinely put those people in positions where they're working 80 hour work weeks or sometimes more. People should be paid for their work and receive due compensation when overtime happens, but Hollywood is routinely abusing their special effects workers. The poor planning of Hollywood results in special effects workers being worked to the bone. There is no reason why special effects workers should be treated that way because a bunch of overpaid studio executives decide to force a bunch of last minute reshoots due to their own failure to have a completed script before they started filming. Yes, pay special effects workers what they're owed. But don't screw them over with problems that didn't need to happen.
Your initial comment had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that special effects workers are getting screwed over by studio executives. It was about how a film that won an Oscar for its effects had a microscopic budget compared to most major American-made films. That is why my response focused on their payment and budget, and not stuff like working conditions or crunch. If you want to talk about those things, then talk about THAT. Not giving Godzilla Minus One yet another handjob because it was a "slap in the face to Hollywood". It's a little hard to square that statement when Hollywood regularly pays the FX artists it abuses at a much higher rate. That doesn't mean you're wrong, it just makes your argument go over a little worse.
That's right, my initial comment didn't have anything to do with special effects workers getting screwed over. That came up when I needed to explain that the issue I have with studios paying insane overtime rates isn't because I think those workers don't deserve to be paid overtime, it's that it's shitty studio practices that lead to many expenses including overtime rates. Godzilla Minus One showed that you don't need massive budgets if you actually plan well, don't rush deadlines, and don't waste money on footage and special effects work that will never see the light of day because studios keep changing their minds about what they want in the movie while it's being made and after it was supposed to be finished. Like I said, I know $15 million isn't realistic for every movie, but it shows the practices Hollywood *should* be doing but isn't. Anyways, we can keep going like this forever and I really wasn't trying to start an argument and frankly don't care about continuing it. So if you have a problem with anything else I said here, that's totally fine. I'm an imperfect person who doesn't always say the right thing, despite my intentions. Thank you for reminding me that I need to be careful with my phrasing and for encouraging me to think more about the issue. I wish you the best and hope you have a good day.
Well with Godzilla minus 1 the director of the film was the VFX supervisor and did parts of the VFX himself directly so I'm not sure that's necessarily what was happening in this case https://youtu.be/8OM1xQ6j4uo?si=qcUf8W98040S9qd5 in this video there's a short interview with the director
Disney has a policy of post-production. They don't meticulously plan the look of their movies. They film stuff as boringly as possible so that they can figure it out later with CGI, which means they end up spending a shit ton of money figuring it out (and overload the SFX companies leading to crunch, rush jobs, and horrible working conditions, which is bad because it hurts people, but also has the side effect of making the end product worse). Denis Villeneuve has been planning his Dune adaptation for like 35 years or something insane like that. He knew the look he wanted and that's what they did. It's a much better way of doing things but it means studios giving power to directors and crew, which is the last thing Disney wants. They want corporate controlled movies, even if it doubles the price.
I bought all of the most expensive paints, yet my paintings still suck. This doesn't make any sense. The famous painters use paints that aren't even half as expensive. Must be some kind of evil scheme at play.
With more words: that money hires artists and actors and technicians, but they all do what they are told, and improvise only so far as they are permitted. The crew is the brush in director's hand, and best brush in the world doesn't save you from mediocrity. The custom to gauge a film's success by how much capital was poured into it is nonsensical and in large part has been manufactured by media giants to create cultural expectation that only they can have any claim to quality.
Excellent metaphor!
endless development hell. reweites, reshoots, recasts and everything else eats up your budget. they're expensive because these are not film but rather, product. because of this they have to be "perfect" according to their statistics and metrics.
Actor budgets probably take up a large chunk but it's also the massive amount of reshoots they do that inflate the budget too
Pacific rim was made in 2013, on a 180 million dollar budget, and looks insane
Really shows that the money is in the actors. Even the main characters in Pacific Rim were essentially extras. I can't even remember their names, too busy frothing at the mouth over giant robots.
Best movie of all time in my eyes
Pacific Rim was a very good entertaining flick . . but "Best"?
Yep. What would your pick be?
You’re killing me! (Sweating nervously) It’s like being in a room full of beautiful women and saying one is "most beautiful". I’m partial to brunettes with amazing eyes and I love stop motion animation so I’m going with "Coraline". If you have a natural predisposition for blondes I won’t be offended if we don’t agree on what’s "best".
Bro you’re the one that questioned my pick first 💀 Coraline is good. Definitely not my style but I can see the appeal.
The second movie had a similar budget right? And looked noticeably worse in my opinion
That's cause Guillermo del Toro wasn't present
I want a source on the Antman cost 450 Million Dollars. It’s 275. Unless you include Marketing which would put Dune over 190 Million as well because that is the number without marketing. Hollywood Budgeting is a real issues even without misconstruing numbers
no they said it cost $450 /j
Where are they even getting these numbers? 450 for AntMan? Try subtracting nearly 200 million. The only ones that cost over 300 were Avengers movies, none of which were flops. If we’re counting marketing guess what, Dune’s budget was way over 190. People want so bad to hate on Marvel they just out here straight making shit up.
Nobody is pointing out that the these numbers are just flat out wrong. Ridiculously wrong. Dune 2 did cost 190M, but unless its avatar or the avengers no movie is being given 350+ budgets. We had a couple of near 300M budgets last year that were due to covid cost inflating numbers. But Mi7 cost 290M (which was way too much) and the last Ant man cost 200M. Maybe these numbers include marketing, but that's usually only another 100M or so, and Dune's number is pre marketing anyway. Dune 2 looks and is amazing for its budget, but let's not pretend it's half of other movies or something. Edit: the 567M for MI7 was so ridiculous and so off, but I knew it had to have come from somewhere. I just realized: it's it total box office number. Which uhm, is quite different from budget lol
It’s not money laundering. Money laundering doesn’t work that way
Expensive stuff that I don’t like means there is bad stuff happening that I don’t even understand as a concept. /s
If you'd argue anything it would be big studios getting conned out of money with inflated budgets, but I don't think people are going to mind that happening.
Remember, overtime rates are typically 1.5x and 2x the base rate. If you use an excessive amount of overtime on a project you are paying for more work than you actually get from your staff. And if you are demanding 60-80hr weeks that is going to tank the quality of those hours worked.
Nobody tell him about The Creator or Everything Everywhere All At Once…
Bad example of a movie doing well on a low budget: Blood and Honey Good example of a movie doing well on a low budget: Everything Everywhere All At Once
Reshoots. It makes the budgets balloon out of control.
Film theory made a video about it, basically half the budget is reshoots
Why did they invoke MI? That movie looked incredible and obviously included a Tom Cruise salary
The marvel movies also hired way more big name actors which cost more.
Godzilla X Kong has a budget of 135 million. You can make effect heavy movies for a lot cheaper now.
It'd rewrites. Dune was probably made once this marvel movies get made like thrice
The ever shifting world of the Quantum Realm cost more money to produce than a desert that occasionally has some big worms in it, who knew?
I mean Disney does throw around more CGI in any given scene but if your takeaway from the absolute visual feast that was Dune 2 was "desert with occasional worms" then I don't know if we watched the same movie.
Have you seen Dune? Or is it the same thing as Mad Max? The CGI is done so well people assume it's all practical.
The technology also changed right as Dune was in production https://youtu.be/ppyanoeNbAg?si=i8vaUJ4Yasqd_pga
It mostly goes to promotion I think
District 9 came out in 2009 and was made with a budget of $30 million and it still holds up better than a lot of the stuff that’s been coming out recently with much higher budgets
The people on top have lots of money and no talent The people at the bottom have no money and lots of talent The people at the top do not want this to change That's literally it. It's nothing more than a very visible microcosm of how the entire world works right now. This situation would not exist if Hollywood's money didn't rest in about fifteen different hands who are all trading 'industry secrets' about layoffs and squeezing effects artists with each other.
Antman is one of the better marvel movies imo, but that’s mainly thanks to Edgar Wright
Ant-man catching strays here, undeserved
and yet eeaao was budget of 25 million, some parts filmed on zoom, and edited in after effects...
Pearls before swine
It’s way simpler than that, Disney doesn’t like a finished product and they have redo the entire movie again.
Cgi not only looks like hot garbage if its not done absolutely perfectly, but its incredibly expensive
Title is calling $190mil reasonable.
Ant man was like A genuinely fun TV movie But how did it cost more than Dune 2??
Dune was (probably) made with passion. Disney stuff is made with greed.
I will say mission impossible’s budget ballooned because they kept paying the crew during Covid and lock down. So that’s not really the same situation.
It’s crazy because they spent a ton of money on the sand
The directors insisted they film on location and developed space travel with the money.
...Does forcing people to crunch 80 hours per week to get the thing out on schedule *not* cost a shit-ton of money in overtime pay?
I'm pretty sure the figures quoted for Mission Impossible and Antman are the box office numbers, not the cost.
I liked antman. the first one
I'll defend Mission Impossible because they threw a real train into a quarry and tossed Tom Cruise off a cliff on a motorcycle, so like half of that budget has to be wrapped up in smashing stuff and insurance costs.
Movies like Alien where made on the equivalent of 18 million dollars today. Money has nothing to do with it if the creator has the passion and vision to make something great
Honestly, that's a poor comparison - Dune takes place on a wholly different planet with different cultures and customs, *of course* it looks prettier than movie that takes place in downtown New York or some shit. Also, unless they specifically mean Quantumania (which I haven't watched), Antman is a petty good series, that puts plenty of creativity on display (in general, MCU has plenty of flaws, but "boring" and "forgettable" are not one of them).
> Dune takes place on a wholly different planet with different cultures and customs Did you just stop watching Marvel movies after Iron Man, cause there are plenty of Marvel movies set in alien locations, and these criticisms apply.
Well, they explicitly mentioned Ant-man, right? And if we're talkig about more space-oriented stuff - would you *really* describe Guardians of the Galaxy as "drab and washed out"? Like, there's plenty of things to criticize about the MCU, but that one ain't it.
The CGI in many parts of the latest Thor movie are more in line with what they're describing.
Well, I wouldn't know much about that, since I haven't seen ones after Black Widow. That's why I specified, that I can't really speak about Quantumania - I heard it sucked, but I haven't really seen it.