# How come movies are getting more and more expensive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 26, 2003, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138 "2003-07-26T20:21:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2003, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/21 "2003-07-27T23:47:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dr. Rieux \* > \*\*The version I’ve heard is two and a half times the budget. \*\* “Darling! This is the Industry! The real creative people in Hollywood are the accountants!” – John D. MacDonald, _Free Fall In Crimson_ ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/22 "2003-07-28T03:28:35Z")
In the director’s commentary to _ **Apollo 13** _ Ron Howard talks about how it was _cheaper_ to shoot the movie on the KC-135 _Vomit Comet_ than it was to shoot it on the ground, since the scenes on the ground (referring to the inside the capsule shots) would require all kinds of extra equipment and FX to make it _look_ like the astronauts were weightless, whereas if they actually _made_ the actors weightless (I know, I know, they’re not _really_, but you get what I mean), and that if the _Vomit Comet_ hadn’t broken down during the shooting they never would have gotten to do this because it enabled RH to go to the studio and say, “We need to delay filming of the picture so that I can build these sets for the plane. If I build these sets for the ground it’s going to cost more money.” So circumstances “conspired” to enable them to do the film cheaper, and RH was astute enough and powerful enough to be able to take advantage of the situation. ---
**Author:** ![Vlad\_Dracul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/50afbb/32.png) [@Vlad\_Dracul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vlad_Dracul)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/23 "2003-07-28T06:16:08Z")
Gatopescado has a point… Everybody who works on a hit movie is going to trumpet that fact to the four corners of the earth. They’re going to take every opportunity to milk their association with the Big Blockbuster for everything it’s worth. This will naturally result in a general trend of rising prices for a multitude of movie services, on the “I’m worth it because my last film grossed 500 million” principle. Once everyone involved has raised their price, the overall cost goes up. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/24 "2003-07-28T13:10:38Z")
NPR recently had a really interesting piece about the changing landscape of movie profitability. One of the key factors is the explosion of DVD sales. A big movie opening is almost always followed by a big DVD opening. Furthermore, the DVD sales last quite a bit longer. For a movie to be financially successful, it only needs to top the box-office for a couple of weeks and then follow with strong DVD sales. Also, I believe the profits from tie-ins have really grown. In particular, the video game tie-in has exploded. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/25 "2003-07-28T14:27:26Z")
One thing that affects cost of the CGI is overtime. If a movie has a release date that it is married to and the production runs behind then the CGI artists must work and get paid overtime. James Cammeron said that moving Titanic back 6 months instead of two weeks saved the production a lot of money by not having to pay overtime to everyone working post production. ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2003, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/26 "2003-07-28T18:13:14Z")
I can’t find the title of it, but I could swear that adjusted for inflation, a Russian version of “War and Peace” is by far the most expensive movie ever made. Can anyone help me out? ---
**Author:** ![quasar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@quasar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quasar)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/27 "2003-08-02T16:58:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DesertDog \* > \*\*A (very) rough rule of thumb is that a movie needs to gross twice its budget before it makes a profit for the studio. \*\* Does that refer to American box office totals, or worldwide ticket revenues? Along similar lines, on average, what percentage of a film’s box office revenues gets collected in the local market as opposed to the revenues generated by international distribution? I seem to recall that **Titanic** grossed 600 million dollars in the US and 1.2 billion worldwide (US included), i.e., a 50/50 revenue generation split between local and international markets, for this particular case. [Nitpick] **Tusculan** , it’s 24 frames per second, not 30. [/Nitpick] Cheers, quasar ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2003, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138/28 "2003-08-03T02:22:48Z")
I’d wager that any given effect is cheaper now than it used to be (or at worst, the same price) when adjusted for inflation, but movies are trying things now they never did before. Just think, ten or fifteen years ago, would anybody have even considered filming a movie where half the main characters needed to have their size changed by a factor of two, next to other normal sized characters, in nearly every scene? When _Willow_ wanted something similar, they had to hire actors who actually were short, and they really only had one choice for the lead. Obviously, the small talent pool is a problem, and you can’t have Warwick Davis play all four hobbits plus Gimli. So _Lord of the Rings_ instead had effects in every scene. Another example: In an old movie, whenever a nuke goes off, you see stock footage of one of the military’s tests. It’s the same shots in every movie, the look doesn’t match the rest of the film, the scene is nothing but the bomb going off, and most of them are black and white. Now, if you wanted to do a nuclear explosion of that same quality in a modern movie, you could hire some high-schooler with a computer to put it together in five minutes time for lunch money. But obviously, now that we **can** do better nukes than that, the moviemakers (and moviegoers) **want** better nukes. And a fully-modelled explosion costs a lot more than stock footage. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-come-movies-are-getting-more-and-more-expensive/191138.md?page=1)