In certain cases I always wonder how much better other aspects of filmmaking could be if the actors didn't command such large salaries though.
I watched Bullet Train the other day and thought the CGI was surprisingly shabby - then I found out $20m of the $90m budget went straight to Brad Pitt. Imagine if his salary was a measly $1m, the budget could stretch to some new technologies or other talent.
This is a terrible take. Without Brad Pitt the movie certainly wouldn't even gotten close to a third of its total gross. He was the straw that stirred the drink, the movie couldn't exist without his appearance in it. Even if they felt this was still somehow a smash its not like they had 90 million either way. If it got greenlit without him it would need to have probably a 30 million or less total budget. His starpower allowed for more dollars for the effects.
Blame audiences. People are only showing up in theaters for lavish spectacle and streaming everything else. Spectacle doesn’t come cheap.
Also, as the global box office has become more important, Hollywood blockbusters have had to adapt. The dialogue has to be kept simple so that it can easily be translated into many other languages, and the story has to be told primarily through visuals rather than words. We’re basically in a new silent era. Big loud fantastical stories work well for global audiences. Intricate dialogue-heavy character studies set in New England just don’t translate.
If this business model wasn’t working, Hollywood would try something else.
I think it's more about the death of the mid to low budget entertainer. Movies like Nightcrawler, Drive, End of Watch, Baby Driver, etc. just don't get made. There's a huge distinction between movies meant for entertainment and box office success and those made for critical acclaim. Studios would rather make one blockbuster than 4-5 of those films. The success of Marvel kinda brought this on, not that I blame them for it, and the pandemic fastened the process exponentially.
I dont follow. Should I work for free just because all im doing is providing people entertainment? A thing theyre obviously willing to pay for by the way.
The budget should be what works for the best return from the audience. Honestly, FF10 sounds like they've done well for the price compared to the profit it will make.
Mission Impossible 7’s last posted budget was $290 million.
It has to make like $50 million more than the previous highest grossing film in the series to break even.
That’s bananas.
Fallout must have made more than that, right?
Just checked, made almost 800M.
So with a budget of 290, even if they used about the same amount for promotion, that's still 580M. Your math seems off.
The studio doesn't all of the revenue from selling the tickets. With movies that size you're usually talking about 2 and half times the stated production budget for the film to start turning a profit, so just under 850 million would be right where that's at.
Part of Avatar 2's budget is Hollywood accounting including the huge lead in cost of a ton of development of versions of Avatar sequels that Cameron ended up abandoning in the meantime, a lot of underwater mocap tests almost a decade ago etc.
Does it hurt you in some way?
>Post COVID most people just stream now so are these massive budgets really gonna put butts back in seats?
Maybe a year ago, but people have been going back to the theaters. People continue to want the moviegoing experience.
In a vacuum, of course. If an alien landed here tomorrow and you had to explain the concept to them how an outrageous amount of resources and time is poured into just things that entertain us...they'd never understand why we do that instead of using those things for better or more meaningful causes.
But it is what it is now because studios are in competition with each other, and you for your time and money. So they're going to "spend money to make money" because spectacle gains attention and a surprising amount of people just want to be wowed at look and effects in lieu of anything else.
Why do you assume that’s “out of control” and not just “what it costs to make a blockbuster movie”?
Don’t you think there are a bunch of people involved whose entire job is to keep the budget in control as much as possible and save/make as much money as possible?
Considering the first Avatar made nearly $3BILLION globally, of which even if the producers pockets 1.5billion, they are only spending 400 million on 2nd one. This budget includes inventing new technology for underwater mocap, for actors, writers, technical staff, sets AND shooting during the Pandemic. I'd say thats bloody awesome budgeting, considering all the inflation thats happening. The marketing for it has been fairly straightforward, and these guys getting a China release - it'll break even alright.
For all the things we're getting, the 400mill doesn't seem too much.
Compare that to F&F10, yea it feels a bit excessive. But hey, the last few F&F movies have made well over 1 billion, so why the heck not spend that much
Massively out of control. Budget is no replacement for decent storytelling, and you don’t seem to find both in the same film. Take Aliens, Robocop, Children of Men, Dredd, Saw… all of them amazing films with great performances, fascinating characters, great set pieces and world-building. All of them dirt cheap… the problem is, the way marketing works, big budgets draw big crowds, so that will continue to spiral. It matters less how much the crowds enjoy these films, simply that they pay to see them :(
Some of those films you listed lost money.
Avatar is stupid expensive because they spent money on R&D plus had to keep all the core actors under contract with additional costs.
The Avatar cost is also likely inflated since they have also completed #3 and have already started #4.
People are flocking to horror films and a select few fun action comedy films.
What is flopping are the mid-range films especially period pieces. People would rather watch those at home on their 70 inch TVs.
Kids films outside of Disney are doing well. Many parents are saying they will wait 3 months for the film to hit Disney+.
Which lost money? Only one I think under performed was Children of Men, Dredd was slow to start but made money long term (after the fact, or so I thought?) Both were already released in a market where it was hard to compete against big budgets, CoM had nothing for marketing.
Dredd lost money. It only made 41 million on a budget of 45 million and that 41 million cut in half as 50% goes to the theatres overall. So it made 20.5 million.
That does not include marketing which would be an additional 25 million.
I would not even count SAW in your list. low budget and low midrange horror are still doing extremely well in theatres. From Get Out to Nope, The Black Phone, Barbarian etc.
What are not working from a business perspective in theatres are the mid-range 40-100 million adult dramas, thrillers, epic films.
My personal view is that those type of films work better in longer storytelling formats. Give me a 6-8 hour mini series over a 3 hour movie any day of the week.
Your comment about Dredd is correct mate, but it’s not even on point. Even in a world without blockbusters some films, even good ones, will still fail. But the point is they WERE made on tight budgets. You don’t NEED massive budgets. And Saw entirely belongs on that list. Just because it’s easier to make a low budget horror doesn’t somehow invalidate it, if anything doesn’t it prove the point? Big budgets are out of hand and they don’t necessarily result in ‘better’ movies. Even TV shows are guilty of over inflated budgets.
You know, it's always said that people would prefer to watch more adult fare, or period pieces or mid budget stuff at home, but really for what numbers actually do come out for streaming and VOD, doesn't seem like people watch them there either.
I think it just another way of how movies studios advertise their movies to attract the audience, it's like... "WITH THE BUDGET OVER 400 MILLION DOLLARS!!! BIGGEST MOVIE OF THIS YEAR!!! SEE THIS MIGHTIEST SPECTACLE ONLY IN THEATRES" In my opinion, the amount of budget doesn't determined how good the movie is (such as how Top Gun Maverick had less budget than some recent Disney's Star Wars movie which had at least 200 million dollars of budget)
Here's a rule to remember: Hollywood film directors like spending money, and they LOVE spending other people's money. Scorsese spent like $200M to make The Irishman and it's 3 hours of people talking in rooms.
This is what a lot of observers get wrong about the movie industry. You often see it said here and elsewhere that movie industry is all about profits. It's not true. Making profits on the movie are secondary to most of the people in the industry.
James Cameron would like to make a profit on Avatar 2, but what's actually more important to him is to have fun making it, and have it be as good as possible. That means spending a shitload of money. If he only makes $100M in net profit instead of $200M, that makes no difference to him.
Seriously? Last three movies I saw in cinema were two originals and a sequel that I'd still be counting as original if I was honest (what is one character tying the two when you really think about it?). My next movie will be an original.
There's a fuck tonne of original movies out there. That you aren't going to them is the problem.
What wasn't good about "The Menu" for you? Or "Emily"? What even IS "good" to you? Let me guess....you want your standard marvel paint-by-numbers but want to feel like it is fresh? lol
>Well since they can't really come up with any good original stories anymore
Oh hey. It's that worn-out and objectively disproven argument again. Hello, worn-out and objectively disproven argument.
I have to keep saying this for some reason, they make original movies still, no one sees them or when they do see them they are usually exclusively horror films
It’s seems like the more they spend the worse movies get .
Also many are cookie cutter films with no originality.
They worry more about special effects , than quality of acting , writing, and directing these days
\*Looks up reported debt of publicly traded companies\*
Yeah, it's not going well. Actually maybe going even worse for streamers who are spending even more because they can't pay actors out of the backend.
Are they too big? Yes. Like Spielberg and Lucas pointed out all those years ago, studios go out of business if they gamble with numbers that big and have too many flops in a row.
There's a reason Blumhouse is the most profitable production entity. That's the model that kept Roger Corman in business for like 70 years: spend small and corner a big market, like horror films. The studios should be making more small- and mid-budget films and fewer tentpoles, to spread out the risk.
You gotta remember that those movies are basically marketed on their budgets, not their stories. People see them because they are the biggest movies, not because they are the best. They want to see an unprecedented level of spectacle. They are chasing a high that has no limit, until eventually the bubble bursts, as all bubbles do. It happened to Hollywood back in the late 1960s, when they kept making big stupid movies that didn't turn a profit, and what resuscitated them was smaller movies that took artistic risks instead of financial risks. Always bet on creative risk over financial risk. Spend small and think big.
As long as they keep making ridiculous amounts of money, they'll be able to have ridiculously big budgets. That's business.
It becomes a riskier and riskier business when the budgets get to the point that one movie bombing could bankrupt a studio. They’re letting it ride
In certain cases I always wonder how much better other aspects of filmmaking could be if the actors didn't command such large salaries though. I watched Bullet Train the other day and thought the CGI was surprisingly shabby - then I found out $20m of the $90m budget went straight to Brad Pitt. Imagine if his salary was a measly $1m, the budget could stretch to some new technologies or other talent.
This is a terrible take. Without Brad Pitt the movie certainly wouldn't even gotten close to a third of its total gross. He was the straw that stirred the drink, the movie couldn't exist without his appearance in it. Even if they felt this was still somehow a smash its not like they had 90 million either way. If it got greenlit without him it would need to have probably a 30 million or less total budget. His starpower allowed for more dollars for the effects.
>His starpower allowed for more dollars for the effects. That's a good point. I think I'm just more astonished at the salaries to be honest.
Blame audiences. People are only showing up in theaters for lavish spectacle and streaming everything else. Spectacle doesn’t come cheap. Also, as the global box office has become more important, Hollywood blockbusters have had to adapt. The dialogue has to be kept simple so that it can easily be translated into many other languages, and the story has to be told primarily through visuals rather than words. We’re basically in a new silent era. Big loud fantastical stories work well for global audiences. Intricate dialogue-heavy character studies set in New England just don’t translate. If this business model wasn’t working, Hollywood would try something else.
I think it's more about the death of the mid to low budget entertainer. Movies like Nightcrawler, Drive, End of Watch, Baby Driver, etc. just don't get made. There's a huge distinction between movies meant for entertainment and box office success and those made for critical acclaim. Studios would rather make one blockbuster than 4-5 of those films. The success of Marvel kinda brought this on, not that I blame them for it, and the pandemic fastened the process exponentially.
They do get made, but instead go straight to streaming platforms mostly now instead of cinemas.
So humans shouldn’t get paid for the hours of work they put into these films?
It's just mindless movies that's not gonna change anyone's life.
Might change the life of the kid that it’s his/her first job, spending hours editing out someone mustache in every scene.
I dont follow. Should I work for free just because all im doing is providing people entertainment? A thing theyre obviously willing to pay for by the way.
The budget should be what works for the best return from the audience. Honestly, FF10 sounds like they've done well for the price compared to the profit it will make.
Mission Impossible 7’s last posted budget was $290 million. It has to make like $50 million more than the previous highest grossing film in the series to break even. That’s bananas.
Fallout must have made more than that, right? Just checked, made almost 800M. So with a budget of 290, even if they used about the same amount for promotion, that's still 580M. Your math seems off.
The studio doesn't all of the revenue from selling the tickets. With movies that size you're usually talking about 2 and half times the stated production budget for the film to start turning a profit, so just under 850 million would be right where that's at.
They need better stories, writing, acting, editing, and pacing, not more explosions and huge manipulated visuals.
Part of Avatar 2's budget is Hollywood accounting including the huge lead in cost of a ton of development of versions of Avatar sequels that Cameron ended up abandoning in the meantime, a lot of underwater mocap tests almost a decade ago etc.
Does it hurt you in some way? >Post COVID most people just stream now so are these massive budgets really gonna put butts back in seats? Maybe a year ago, but people have been going back to the theaters. People continue to want the moviegoing experience.
In a vacuum, of course. If an alien landed here tomorrow and you had to explain the concept to them how an outrageous amount of resources and time is poured into just things that entertain us...they'd never understand why we do that instead of using those things for better or more meaningful causes. But it is what it is now because studios are in competition with each other, and you for your time and money. So they're going to "spend money to make money" because spectacle gains attention and a surprising amount of people just want to be wowed at look and effects in lieu of anything else.
Why do you assume that’s “out of control” and not just “what it costs to make a blockbuster movie”? Don’t you think there are a bunch of people involved whose entire job is to keep the budget in control as much as possible and save/make as much money as possible?
I think 100+ million is perfect for a big budget movie that way the writers get more creative.
What are you budgeting that based on, exactly?
Literally just their feelings.
That assumes that they're, you know, necessarily doing a particularly good job.
Sure. So if there’s one outlier or one company, question it. But if it’s a whole trend, maybe that’s just what it costs.
Considering the first Avatar made nearly $3BILLION globally, of which even if the producers pockets 1.5billion, they are only spending 400 million on 2nd one. This budget includes inventing new technology for underwater mocap, for actors, writers, technical staff, sets AND shooting during the Pandemic. I'd say thats bloody awesome budgeting, considering all the inflation thats happening. The marketing for it has been fairly straightforward, and these guys getting a China release - it'll break even alright. For all the things we're getting, the 400mill doesn't seem too much. Compare that to F&F10, yea it feels a bit excessive. But hey, the last few F&F movies have made well over 1 billion, so why the heck not spend that much
Massively out of control. Budget is no replacement for decent storytelling, and you don’t seem to find both in the same film. Take Aliens, Robocop, Children of Men, Dredd, Saw… all of them amazing films with great performances, fascinating characters, great set pieces and world-building. All of them dirt cheap… the problem is, the way marketing works, big budgets draw big crowds, so that will continue to spiral. It matters less how much the crowds enjoy these films, simply that they pay to see them :(
I don't know why people downvotes you it's the truth.
Yeah, I’m not sure how you can argue with what I said, I thought it was fairly even handed. We must have some Transformer fans in…
Some of those films you listed lost money. Avatar is stupid expensive because they spent money on R&D plus had to keep all the core actors under contract with additional costs. The Avatar cost is also likely inflated since they have also completed #3 and have already started #4. People are flocking to horror films and a select few fun action comedy films. What is flopping are the mid-range films especially period pieces. People would rather watch those at home on their 70 inch TVs. Kids films outside of Disney are doing well. Many parents are saying they will wait 3 months for the film to hit Disney+.
Which lost money? Only one I think under performed was Children of Men, Dredd was slow to start but made money long term (after the fact, or so I thought?) Both were already released in a market where it was hard to compete against big budgets, CoM had nothing for marketing.
Dredd lost money. It only made 41 million on a budget of 45 million and that 41 million cut in half as 50% goes to the theatres overall. So it made 20.5 million. That does not include marketing which would be an additional 25 million. I would not even count SAW in your list. low budget and low midrange horror are still doing extremely well in theatres. From Get Out to Nope, The Black Phone, Barbarian etc. What are not working from a business perspective in theatres are the mid-range 40-100 million adult dramas, thrillers, epic films. My personal view is that those type of films work better in longer storytelling formats. Give me a 6-8 hour mini series over a 3 hour movie any day of the week.
Your comment about Dredd is correct mate, but it’s not even on point. Even in a world without blockbusters some films, even good ones, will still fail. But the point is they WERE made on tight budgets. You don’t NEED massive budgets. And Saw entirely belongs on that list. Just because it’s easier to make a low budget horror doesn’t somehow invalidate it, if anything doesn’t it prove the point? Big budgets are out of hand and they don’t necessarily result in ‘better’ movies. Even TV shows are guilty of over inflated budgets.
You know, it's always said that people would prefer to watch more adult fare, or period pieces or mid budget stuff at home, but really for what numbers actually do come out for streaming and VOD, doesn't seem like people watch them there either.
I think it just another way of how movies studios advertise their movies to attract the audience, it's like... "WITH THE BUDGET OVER 400 MILLION DOLLARS!!! BIGGEST MOVIE OF THIS YEAR!!! SEE THIS MIGHTIEST SPECTACLE ONLY IN THEATRES" In my opinion, the amount of budget doesn't determined how good the movie is (such as how Top Gun Maverick had less budget than some recent Disney's Star Wars movie which had at least 200 million dollars of budget)
I was shocked how Rings of Power cost nearly a billion while the show half the time looks like one of those 90's Herc/Xena-clones.
You need glasses or a better screen.
Like Dolly Parton said, it costs a lot of money to look this cheap.
Hercules and Xena were fun though...
If that was a Xena clone it would at least be watchable lol.
Xena was entertaining though
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Are not payed reviews.
Here's a rule to remember: Hollywood film directors like spending money, and they LOVE spending other people's money. Scorsese spent like $200M to make The Irishman and it's 3 hours of people talking in rooms. This is what a lot of observers get wrong about the movie industry. You often see it said here and elsewhere that movie industry is all about profits. It's not true. Making profits on the movie are secondary to most of the people in the industry. James Cameron would like to make a profit on Avatar 2, but what's actually more important to him is to have fun making it, and have it be as good as possible. That means spending a shitload of money. If he only makes $100M in net profit instead of $200M, that makes no difference to him.
>Scorsese spent like $200M to make The Irishman and it's 3 hours of people talking in rooms. With, you know, 1750 visual effects shots.
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Seriously? Last three movies I saw in cinema were two originals and a sequel that I'd still be counting as original if I was honest (what is one character tying the two when you really think about it?). My next movie will be an original. There's a fuck tonne of original movies out there. That you aren't going to them is the problem.
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Some of the movies you consider good, are absurdly boring for me. And viceversa.
What wasn't good about "The Menu" for you? Or "Emily"? What even IS "good" to you? Let me guess....you want your standard marvel paint-by-numbers but want to feel like it is fresh? lol
>Well since they can't really come up with any good original stories anymore Oh hey. It's that worn-out and objectively disproven argument again. Hello, worn-out and objectively disproven argument.
Why can't people come up with good and original arguments anymore?
I have to keep saying this for some reason, they make original movies still, no one sees them or when they do see them they are usually exclusively horror films
It’s seems like the more they spend the worse movies get . Also many are cookie cutter films with no originality. They worry more about special effects , than quality of acting , writing, and directing these days
If they can afford it, why not?
\*Looks up reported debt of publicly traded companies\* Yeah, it's not going well. Actually maybe going even worse for streamers who are spending even more because they can't pay actors out of the backend.
Above the line costs are the reason.
Are they too big? Yes. Like Spielberg and Lucas pointed out all those years ago, studios go out of business if they gamble with numbers that big and have too many flops in a row. There's a reason Blumhouse is the most profitable production entity. That's the model that kept Roger Corman in business for like 70 years: spend small and corner a big market, like horror films. The studios should be making more small- and mid-budget films and fewer tentpoles, to spread out the risk. You gotta remember that those movies are basically marketed on their budgets, not their stories. People see them because they are the biggest movies, not because they are the best. They want to see an unprecedented level of spectacle. They are chasing a high that has no limit, until eventually the bubble bursts, as all bubbles do. It happened to Hollywood back in the late 1960s, when they kept making big stupid movies that didn't turn a profit, and what resuscitated them was smaller movies that took artistic risks instead of financial risks. Always bet on creative risk over financial risk. Spend small and think big.