There was a time when Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s Cleopatra (1963) was the most expensive movie ever made. The four-hour epic was filmmaking on an unprecedented scale and cost a (for the time) record $31.1 million. Each passing decade saw the envelope pushed, and productions became more ambitious.
Cut to the 1990s, and the filmmaker behind the low-budget sci-fi movie The Terminator (1984) changed the game twice in three years. James Cameron’s True Lies (1994) was the first motion picture with a $100+ million budget. Then Titanic (1997) sailed into the history books, becoming the most expensive film ever made at $200 million.
Titanic’s massive success showed that with significant risk comes gigantic profits or at least the potential. Decades later, Hollywood still operates in the same way, and occasionally, it works. However, too many films are pricing themselves out of profitability, and overall budgets need to come down.
If the industry is to thrive, some changes are needed, and fast. To highlight out-of-control studio spending, let’s mildly outrage ourselves with a rundown of the five most expensive movies of all time.
The Most Expensive Movies Ever Made
Filmmaking costs money; more specifically, big studio movies cost truckloads of cash. Those giant sky beams in the third act aren’t cheap. Still, you might be shocked to discover just how much some movies have cost.
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) – $447 million
- Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom (2018) – $432 million
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) – $412 million
- Fast X (2023) – $379 million
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) – $379 million
As difficult as it is to believe, Fast X (2023) costs more than Avengers Endgame (2019), Infinity War (2018), and Avatar 2 (2022). Even more horrifying is the $447 million price tag for The Force Awakens (2015). No singular movie should cost that much and I say that as a lifelong Star Wars fan.
How Can Studios Spend Less?
If we accept that filmmaking on this level will always cost a lot to produce, what steps can Hollywood take to control spiraling budgets?
Production Budgets Start Too High
Sprawling budgets are more than just inflation. Studios routinely have multiple Tentpole projects (films that are expected to do big business) in production. As a result, the expectation for these projects to overperform at the box office increases. While $100 million won’t go as far in 2024 as in 1994, you can still make a blockbuster movie with it. Here’s a handful of recent films made for $100 million or less.
- Bad Boys Ride or Die (2024) – $100 million
- Oppenheimer (2023) – $100 million
- Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) – $99 million
- Alien Romulus (2024) – $80 million
- A Quiet Place Day One (2024) $67 million
- It Ends With Us (2024) – $25 million
There is a diverse range of films there, all of which did better at the box office than others that cost far more. I’m not advocating that all big studio titles stick to $100 million or less; that’s just unrealistic. That said, the era of greenlighting $250+ million productions needs review.
The Script Needs To Be Ready Before Cameras Roll
For a blockbuster movie, the release date will be set (usually) more than a year in advance. More often than not, the release is on the schedule before they’ve shot a single frame. Most big films will have writers on set for last-minute minor rewrites. However, it has become too commonplace to overhaul scripts during filming.
Not every film with an unfinished script turned out badly. Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) started with just 32 pages of script. Overall, the production went over budget, hired multiple writers to work on the script, and co-star Oliver Reed died before he’d completed filming. I’ll grant you that’s a specific set of problems to be up against, but Gladiator turned out fine. Sadly, not every troubled production has the seasoned hand of Ridley Scott.
Aside from tweaking the dialogue or minor alterations, the script must be production-ready.
The Budget Needs To Fit The Material
The production budget and the material (script) should always make sense. To put it another way, if I said rom-com hit Anyone But You (2024) cost $155 million to make, you might have some follow-up questions. In truth, that film cost $25 million, a perfectly sensible spend on a rom-com. Sadly, that kind of sense isn’t industry-wide. Even when a low-budget movie hits the big time, and gets a sequel, Hollywood rolls back on its bad habits.
Take the recent Joker: Folie à Deux (2024), the sequel to the billion-dollar hit (the first R-rated film to do so) Joker (2019). The first movie cost a thrifty $60 million, so it’s understandable that a follow-up will be a bit more expensive. The sequel has musical numbers and Lady Gaga; surely, we’re looking at $100 million, right? Nope, it’s almost three times the first film at a whopping $200 million. AKA one Titanic.
That’s right, Joker 2 is more expensive than Dune Part II (2024), which cost $190 million. Nobody could argue that Denis Villeneuve’s second part in his trilogy is anything less than visually stunning. Even if you’re not a fan of the films, the technical achievement is unquestionably impressive.
Folie a Deux looks bigger and bolder than the first, but the budget seems excessive. This leads nicely to my next suggestion, as it could have noticeably reduced Joker’s budget.
Pay Less Upfront and More From Profits
Moviemaking will always be a risky business, and it’s a risk all the top-tier talent should share. Those names on the posters (usually) play a vital role in selling tickets or pressing play. The streaming platforms upped the ante by paying over the odds to secure big names for their original films. As a result, upfront fees have gone up dramatically. What studios should be doing is paying cast and creatives less upfront and more from the profits.
Here’s a great recent example of this method in action. Despite Warner Bros’ plans to release Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice (1988) sequel on its streaming platform (Max), the long-awaited follow-up made it to cinemas. The $147 million budget was the problem, as studio executives felt it was too expensive to be in cinemas. The entire main cast (and Burton) took pay cuts to reduce the budget in exchange for a bigger slice of the profits. Not only did Burton ensure fans got to see Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) on the big screen, it was a bonafide hit at the box office.
Paying less upfront will go a long way toward reducing the overall budget.
Keep Special Effects Special
Undeniably, Jurassic Park (1993) ushered in the digital effects age in a big way. Steven Spielberg’s iconic blockbuster gave us the perfect blend of stunning practical animatronics with digital creations.
Skip forward to present times and audiences have grown causally numb to digital effects and CGI worlds. There’s a strong case to be made for the gradual decline in the quality of all digital effects. Practical effects have limitations, and they are by no means inexpensive, but there needs to be a better balance between the two. Digital effects can be stunning when used well or sparingly. Nobody should feel proud that a rumored $20 million was the cost to digitally remove Henry Cavill’s mustache from Justice League (2017).
When it comes to the use of digital effects, sometimes less is more.
Film Less
There has never been a movie where what you saw in the cinema was all they shot. Surprisingly, the average is 10-12 minutes for every minute that ends up in the film.
Excessive filming is often a byproduct of an underdeveloped script. However, studios need to adopt more of the methods of independent filmmakers. It should be easy, as Marvel and DC regularly pluck filmmakers who have only made low-budget projects.
Shoot economically, be sure of the script, and if you don’t have it by take three, it’s probably time to move on. By all means, filmmakers should leave themselves options for how the movie can play out. However, ten times the footage is perhaps a shade too much.
Reduce Marketing Costs
There are two main costs in making a movie: production and marketing. I’ll have to save a deep dive into marketing for another time, as it’s an area that needs to change. That said, it’s helpful to understand how significant the cost can be for production.
The average marketing budget for a tentpole movie is half the production budget. However, that’s not always the case. Take Barbie (2023), the biggest film of 2023 (but not the most profitable). The production budget was $145 million, but the marketing budget was more than $150 million. The rule of 50% is regularly ignored for big summer blockbusters, franchises, and most animated films. As a result, there’s no immediate fix to reduce the second (or primary) biggest cost for a major motion picture.
In Summary
There will always be a place for event-level filmmaking. I’m first in line every summer to see the latest CGI-heavy blockbuster or a giant-sized thing fighting another giant-sized thing. True as that may be, the industry as a whole is struggling, and the ways of old don’t work as effectively. Balanced against the decline in cinema attendance, movie studios must adopt a more economical mentality. After all, many of this year’s box office duds could have turned a profit if it had a more restrained budget.
You might think that paints a picture of no big movies or endless dreary dramas, yet nothing could be further from the truth. We might get fewer CGI-heavy releases, but would that be such a bad thing? Perhaps it would make it more of an event when the digital effects extravaganzas do arrive.
