How much does it cost to create a translation of a previously-existing movie?

Factual Questions
1

I have read that ‘blank versions’ of many movies are made, that are missing the voices. This is so that other-language versions can be made, with other-language voice actors providing the dialogue.

Is this ever done with previously-existing movies? Could someone licence the right to translate, say, Star Wars into, say, Finnish*? What kinds of licence fees are involved? And once one has the permission, how expensive is it to do the work?

One would have to translate the script. One would have to hire voice actors that sort of match the qualities of the original actors. The dialogue would have to be paced to match the action on the screen. Effects would haved to be added, such as room tone, echoes, distortions (“we are passing through their magnetic field” from the assault on the Death Star…).

So, would translating Star Wars cost in the single-digit millions of USD? Tens of millions?

  • Whan I was in Helsinki last summer, The Perfect Storm was showing there in Finnish. It may have been only subtitles though.
2

it all depends…
if you go out and buy bottom line equipments
and do the voices youself in the living room
then you could probably get it done for a few hundred dollars
but once you throw in good equipment, a studio, and talented voice actors, you’ll be out a pretty penny, although well short of a million.

3

$438,632.19 plus tax

4

Sound effects are recorded separately from the dialogue anyway, so they could be used in the foreign version. See Cecil’s column on Foley artists: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_012.html

5

You’re probably thinking of Spaghetti Westerns, where there were actors from all over the place all speaking in their native tongues. The foreign voices were overdubbed.

I guess you can’t have seen too many dubbed films - they are normally hilariously badly done.

The most famous dubbing episode of recent years has to be Princess Mononoke, a Japanese Anime film. The US distribution company that picked it up decided to go all out and the dubbing job and hired (amongst others) Gillian Anderson, Clare Danes, Minnie Driver and Billy Bob Thornton to do the voice overs. Of course, Anime fans were so incensed at not being able to hear the original dialogue that the whole thing had to held back from release for four months, while they went back and made a sub-titled version.