One Budget After Another

[hearthesilence]

Oh wow, we're back in the USA Films, Paramount Vantage, Fine Line Features era.

This occurred to me as well. I actually remember when news broke that Paramount Vantage and Warner Independent were closing up shop and how ridiculous it seemed - Paramount Vantage alone had just released No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood to wide acclaim, strong profit and Oscars galore (not to mention claiming the #1 and #2 spots in at least two, maybe three major U.S. critics polls), and now they decided to throw it away, apparently because they didn't give a shit about making something worthwhile. (And really fucking sad how Paramount circa 2007 has so little resemblance to Paramount now.) With too many expensive bombs exposing how much of a risk the prevailing model has taken on, it would be great if we see something like the second coming of the New Hollywood, with riskier mid-budget films that are more personal and idiosyncratic. A lot to hope for, but I could see things at least going in that direction if not all the way.

[captveg]

The chase for the global dollars really ended up killing the consistent, less risky domestic mid-range theatrical market. I welcome any attempts to try to recreate it after such a long wandering in the wilderness.

[Monterey Jack]

We need more Weaponses ($40 million budget, $269 mil gross). On a cost-to-return ratio, that wipes the floor with any superhero movie made in the last two years (all of which cost up to and exceeding $200 million and are struggling to make even twice that globally). It's just sad that horror is the only genre that has this "small risk for a potential big payoff" audience in theaters anymore. Long gone are the days when an adult drama like Rain Man could cost $25 million and gross over $400 mil and win four Oscars. Nowadays a movie like that would get dumped on Netflix, Prime or Hulu.

[rrenault]

The other issue is that due to “Hollywood accounting” films that should be “mid budget films for adults” have obscenely high budgets for no explicable reason. I’m thinking of films like One Battle After Another, Killers of the Flower Moon, and even Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Films from the 90s of seemingly similar scale like The English Patient were made for a fraction of that. Sure, there’s Leo’s salary, but that shouldn’t be the difference between 40 million and a 150 million.

So yes, midbudget dramas get thrown on Netflix, but also, films that should be mid budget dramas like “Flower Moon” end up having tentpole budgets. Even Malick’s The New World only cost $30 million to make.

[MichaelB]

I have absolutely no idea why a largely single-location film like Bugonia cost as much as it did.

[rrenault]

Meanwhile, The Brutalist cost $10 million. I have to imagine budget often means the amount of money the film’s backers make available for production, not necessarily what’s actually needed to execute the final product, unless of course a film goes over budget. How else would you explain The Brutalist having 1/4 the budget of Licorice Pizza?

[Monterey Jack]

I was agog when I learned that Renfield cost $65 million, when the entire movie looked like it was shot across three whole blocks. How much of that went directly into Nic Cage's pockets? No Hard Feelings is another one...the director's previous comedy (Good Boys) cost $20 million, but NHF cost $45 mil, for the sole purpose that Jennifer Lawrence got a $20 mil paycheck. Back in the 90s, you could cut Jim Carrey a paycheck like that because the movie would make $200 mil easily on a budget that was still under $40 million even with his payout, but post-2020, comedy is a genre as endangered on the big screen as adult dramas, and you cannot justify spending that much.

[Monterey Jack]

Films from the 90s of seemingly similar scale like The English Patient were made for a fraction of that. Sure, there’s Leo’s salary, but that shouldn’t be the difference between 40 million and a 150 million.

One Battle After Another cost over twice what the highest-grossing movie P.T. Anderson movie (There Will Be Blood) ended up making, which is baffling. Yes, the movie ultimately did okay, but imagine if it had grossed $205 million on a budget of $30 or $40 mil? And, as good-looking as the film was...I just did NOT see what he blew $150 million on. At least half of that must have gone to Leo.

[domino harvey]

For as many bad decisions as he was responsible for, by all accounts Zaslav was all in on the film and saw it as an investment

[beamish14]

I was agog when I learned that Renfield cost $65 million, when the entire movie looked like it was shot across three whole blocks. How much of that went directly into Nic Cage's pockets? No Hard Feelings is another one...the director's previous comedy (Good Boys) cost $20 million, but NHF cost $45 mil, for the sole purpose that Jennifer Lawrence got a $20 mil paycheck. Back in the 90s, you could cut Jim Carrey a paycheck like that because the movie would make $200 mil easily on a budget that was still under $40 million even with his payout, but post-2020, comedy is a genre as endangered on the big screen as adult dramas, and you cannot justify spending that much.

Cage typically gets a flat rate of around $1 million for his smaller films like Pig and Dog Eat Dog. His days of commanding $20 million or even $10 are long gone

[Never Cursed]

The information I saw circulating was that Leo was paid $20 million and that the ultimate cost of the film was so high because they paused production to wait for Del Toro to become available.

[domino harvey]

Which obviously was money well spent since both seem like number one or two in their categories

[bottlesofsmoke]

Also, isn't filming primarily in California, as both Licorice Pizza and One Battle After Another did, significantly more expensive than in one of the states or countries which heavily incentives productions to film there? I'm pretty sure the Brutalist was shot mostly in Hungary, for example.

[beamish14]

Also, isn't filming primarily in California, as both Licorice Pizza and One Battle After Another did, significantly more expensive than in one of the states or countries which heavily incentives productions to film there? I'm pretty sure the Brutalist was shot mostly in Hungary, for example.

California does provide very large tax credits, though

[hearthesilence]

There's a lot of ways they could've inflated the budget, and it gets easier where you're dealing with an enormous crew, expensive cast members and other factors that make the daily base cost of a film very high - anything like a delay becomes even costlier. I have no idea if pausing production until del Toro was available meant an unpaid hiatus, but if they did have to pay the entire cast and crew to ensure they didn't split for another job - plausible if they're all freelancers - then I can definitely see that being very expensive.

[Matt]

I have absolutely no idea why a largely single-location film like Bugonia cost as much as it did.

I'm guessing filming in VistaVision jacked up the cost quite a bit, and Emma Stone was probably paid her full fee. There also seem to be a fair bit of effects and stunts credits as well as a lot of location shooting. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if all that money is on the screen or not.

One Battle, too, was filmed in at least a couple dozen locations, and it looks like it involved closing a lot of streets and roads and buildings for shooting. Also a lot of stunts and pyrotechnics.

Shooting in the USA also involves labor unions which are usually not a consideration in places like Hungary or Romania where films can be made much more cheaply. I think Poor Things was shot primarily in Hungary, which allowed for its (reported) $35 million budget.

[Peacock]

I knew people involved in the production office side of One Battle, I remember them saying at the time it was the most chaotic and messy show they had ever been involved in. I’m sure, if my memory is correct, the implication was a director who chops and changed what they want to do, or where they want to shoot, on a whim. Leaving production panting trying to keep up. But who knows.

[Matt]

Truly Robert Altman's successor.

[hearthesilence]

There's a long tradition of filmmakers like that. Terrence Malick and Wong Kar-wai have always worked that way, probably to greater extremes, though it's instructive that Malick's methods have been compared by knowledgeable collaborators (his cinematographers, Jack Fisk, etc.) to documentary and that's key - they want the flexibility and ability to just run and gun. Hell, it's a key scene in the new Linklater movie on Godard when Raoul Coutard is interviewed for the job.

[beamish14]

Truly Robert Altman's successor.

It sounds more like John Landis being given a blank check by Universal for The Blues Brothers. Altman worked very fast and never would’ve run up millions by waiting for an actor. He was very, very loyal like Anderson, though.

[MichaelB]

Also, isn't filming primarily in California, as both Licorice Pizza and One Battle After Another did, significantly more expensive than in one of the states or countries which heavily incentives productions to film there? I'm pretty sure the Brutalist was shot mostly in Hungary, for example.

The reason why Peter Strickland’s self-funded debut Katalin Varga was shot in Transylvania is that he knew that he could stretch his limited funds much further than he could pretty much anywhere in Western Europe.

[Grand Wazoo]

One Battle also shot extensively in El Paso, and I can confirm virtually anyone there with even a toe dipped in the film industry jumped onto as local crew, actors, and extras. This presumably saved some budget while also allowing PTA to lean into that chaotic freedom since the city and its population was more amenable to a huge film coming to town. They leaned into being his playground.

[jedgeco]

California does provide very large tax credits, though

California's incentives are garbage compared to state like Georgia and Louisiana though. In particular, California excludes above-the-line costs like star salaries.

In Georgia, not only are above-the-line costs eligible, you can sell the credit to a Georgia entity that has tax liability, so its almost like cash. These credits are how a movie like Weapons gets made so inexpensively (set in PA but filmed in Atlanta suburbs).

[Matt]

Marvel shoots most if not all of their stuff in Georgia. Ohio must give pretty generous tax credits as well, because Marvel has shot a lot there (including inside a former NASA station where my high school chemistry teacher worked). And Metropolis in James Gunn’s Superman is Cleveland plus a little bit of Cincinnati. Very funny to watch Superman flying down streets I used to walk down every day on my way to work.

[hearthesilence]

Before competing tax credits escalated to where they are now, it already became a tradition for Hollywood to go where they can make films cheaply. Not to overgeneralize it, but basically they're drawn to lower costs whether it's crew wages or rental costs (equipment, facilities, etc.) and naturally when those go up with demand, it's not surprising when the flood of work goes elsewhere. This is why Australia (particularly Sydney) was a popular destination for a while as were Canadian destinations like Vancouver or Toronto. Such is the brutal nature of big business. FWIW, I used to know a few people in Chicago who worked in the film industry...but it wasn't really the film industry, it was mostly TV commercials and industrials, and they relied on them for their livelihood. When a movie came into town, it was gravy - like when The Dark Knight, Public Enemies and those shitty Transformer movies took over the city - but they never banked on them as a frequent occurrence.