Movie Budgets Are Out Of Control! 

Fun fact - raiders of the lost ark cost 20 million dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that's 66 million in 2023. So maybe you can make an indiana jones film under 100 million dollars today.

For the purposes of contrast, go watch The Raid 2 (2014). That movie only cost $4.5 million to make at that time. Crazy!

After hearing you speak about this, I really think advertising is the area they need to cut their budget the most. Find creative ways to advertise that won’t cost as much money, because the actors, directors and writers, and everyone involved need to make their fair share.

I thought i was the only one hoping for a Barbie three-way situation...🤔😉

29:56 I actually just saw John Carter for the first time yesterday and quite enjoyed it! If you look at the story of why it failed there's actually a lot going on, here's the Cliff Notes: 1) It is based on a book from 1912 that is largely credited for being the inspiration behind Star Wars, Avatar (the blue one) and other sci-fi works, but since it came after, the general public saw it as the rip-off, which discredited it. 2) The book was called "A Princess of Mars" and the original title for the movie was "John Carter of Mars". Marketing ditched the words "princess" and "mars" because research said those deterred men and women, respectively. So they ended up with the name "John Carter" which is horribly generic, told you nothing about the movie, and confused book fans. 3) The marketing exec at was new to the position and wanted to do his own thing, despite others telling him otherwise. 4) Disney was in the middle of acquiring Star Wars/Lucasfilm so they now had little incentive to market a competing space saga. 5) It didn't really have any big names attached so casual audiences didn't care.

We used to get so many medium budget films in the theaters. But now because the budgets are so high we only get blockbuster films or low budget niche movies which get very limited releases. The only exception tends to be low budget horror movies which often gets a wide release and big audiences.

I've said it before. These huge budgets - now combined with the acting & writers strikes - are gonna make Hollywood collapse. Side note: my general philosophy is that a movie should be as long as it needs to be. However, there are a lot more movies that are 2 and half hours long if not more. And some of these movies don't need to be that long. Are we just not doing pacing anymore? Do y'all want another Cleopatra? Oh wait...they are already working on another movie of that. Not a good omen

What's even crazier to me is making a couple hundred million budget movies but not caring enough to release them at the right time. I try to time it right when I take a shit.

I need someone to explain The Marvels budget reportedly costing 500 million! Including marketing.. make it make sense

My favorite vids from you are ones like this where you break down the industry and basically show how shitty it is

Big budgets and can't afford to pay people what their owed including the post production sector of which I work in.

I may be the unpopular opinion but I think main actors salary are way too overblown. For Barbie, Margot's Robbie and Ryan Gosselin salaries alone is 25 millions, and if you add will Farrell, it is a combined 35 millions, that alone is more than the whole budget of some very decent movies.

It appears the Little Mermaid just broke even, the run time probably hurt that movie. Little Mermaid made 561 Million on a 250 Million budget which is not impressive. If the studio would shaved a half hour off this movie it could have made 700 Million easy. The budget would not have been so high. The Liam Neeson franchise "Taken" only cost 30 to 40 Million a film but grossed a total of 900 Million combined.

Turning Red is a bad example because it never actually hit theaters. The $7 mil is from approximate subscriptions added and limited Amazon Prime purchases.

Barbenheimer killing everything right now. MI7 had bad marketing, competition and it was a step down from Fallout! The story was Grace steals the key and gets captured again, with two goofy cops running around lol

I think most of Iron Man 3's budget went into the director's and RDJ's pockets.

Disney also decided hey lets make ANOTHER Haunted Mansion lol I am sure it's going to do great...

I was also very disappointed in the lack of profitability for Mission Impossible 7. I very much enjoyed the film, so seeing it lose money kinda sucks.

The sad thing is that Matt Damon pointed this out in an interview that getting medium budget movies made are the toughest, A Few Good Men or The Rainmaker probably don't get made today because they're medium budget movies overall but big budget for dramas. These blockbuster movies need to tone it down, why put yourself in a spot where you've to make 700 million or more to be considered a big hit. E.T. had a 10 million dollar budget and Back to the Future had a 19 million dollar budget. I get that it would cost more than that with inflation today but no movie needs to cost 200 million and that's not even counting marketing.

Also longer movies cost more to make! (duh) We need to go back to short and sweet.

Because People in Hollywood like to laundry money. That's why you say to yourself when watching some movies....Where did the budget go?

I think Luca and Turning Red only got released theatrically to International markets that didn't have Disney+. No domestic release in theaters at all from what I remember.

They call it Ghost Screening, fake box office numbers, there has been a couple of movie studios caught doing this, they do it in countries outside of the USA, like china, india etc. i think Avatar 2 did this, nobody cared about this movie, literally no ads or publicity. People forgot this movie even came out. If this movie failed, all the avatar sequels are in dangers, so, an investment in ghost screening is not out of the question.

Im afraid there's something weird going on with the avatar 2 movie. This movie had almost no publicity, i found out because i searched it online, not even in Instagram. The stupid amount of money it made, no media reports about it like nobody cared.

I agree with you, but I'm not sure there's any precedent for Hollywood cutting its budgets, certainly not in the modern(ish) era. At the start of the 80s people couldn't believe Heaven's Gate cost $44million, it was a disaster and was at least partly responsible for a huge change of culture in the Hollywood system. Nonetheless, before the decade was out Rambo III broke a new record with a $63million budget and it underperformed. But by 1995 Waterworld cost $175million, which was an international joke, so much so that people didn't even notice its strong overseas Box Office, and deemed it a flop. But two years later Titanic cost $200million and would justify the cost, a figure that seems quaint now, and people have rarely blinked at rising budgets since. Hollywood generally pushes through until people accept what they want to do. It doesn't really follow standard business rules; Coca-Cola's time owning Columbia was short lived for a reason. (And in today's money Heaven's Gate cost around $160million, so no, it's not just inflation)

Luv u adam 100k subscribers lets goooo

I can't believe that many people saw Avatar 2.

They did spoil the stunt. I couldn’t tell if it was a new movie or a previous one.

Mars needs Moms and John Carter are some of the biggest bombs in history

Horror Fans are the most loyal bunch. They will (mostly) show up. Even for a bizarre A24 one. 😉

I've been saying this to people lately too, there are too many movie budgets that are $200+ million, like the movie companies think if you don't have a massive budget people aren't going to show up. Marvel should have made movies with less popular or new characters for $50-80 million and no more, $200+ million for eternals and Shang Chi is just crazy. More and more top movies are busting and it's because you can't have 20+ $200 million dollar movies come out in one year. Even worse now we have tv series that get no box office and they cost the same amount. I don't get it. Run times should help but somehow the movie productions will screw up and still make the budget cost the same for a 90 min movie. They better fix it soon or the land of massive box office films might fade away for good.

Well, budgets out of control? That's capitalism at its finest my friend.

I’ve been thinking this for over a decade… movies are taking themselves way too seriously. The bigger budgets allowed for bigger projects fueled by most importantly.. bigger egos. I can just see them in the editing rooms refusing to cut scenes cos too proud of what they filmed, wanting to add side plots and “deeper meanings” to fluff it up. Its not an art for audiences anymore, but for the success they bring the studios and the big names that make them. Why the f.. do u need a 2.5 hour “mission impossible 10” or fast n furious 19? They’re action movies! Why the convoluted plots impossible to follow with 50 characters n stupid wannabe quippy dialogue!! Like the new Jurassic Parc movies… or countless others i cant be bothered to name… Whyyyyyyyy! Sorry I’m ranting but for over a decade i’ve been wanting movies to take themselves less seriously, especially the blockbuster genre. What can i say… I’m a 90s kid, i grew up in the best decade, bite me.

Oh God.. Lol There's definitely some money laundering shenanigans going on. I mean; if I were the IRS, I'd have a task force looking at these budgets and making my career. I had tom come back.. over 200 million to make Buzz Lightyear?!!!!???? At this rate, how on Earth does Hollywood expect to compete with 90 min FUN & ENTERTAINING indie films and independent content creators? There HAS to be something else going on.

Force Awakens was a terrible, lazy, and cynical reset. A weak story, weak characters, and some very poor casting.

geez, green screens have really gone up!

Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of Avatar 2, but I still thought the CG was so amazing that I kinda didn't mind in the end. I think if you got rid of the whale plot and showed more of the world (and basically just showcased more of the CG), it would've been better, but also wouldn't really have a plot. I almost think it'd be better for James Cameron to make a bunch of documentary-type showcases of the CG tech, instead of just making fictional movies with standard plots - but I understand that he's trying to push the tech as far as possible and show how it can work in an actual movie, so I get it.

100K before end of year? You got this.

1hr and 43min is the perfect run time.

I wouldn't be surprised if many of the last blockbuster superhero movies budgets come from money laundering. Drug and people trafficking are two evil practices that are way out of control, and those people need to invest in legal, profitable business such as entertainment, construction, garbage disposal and the like.

Loved 'The Fabelmans'. Went to see it twice (in one day) at the cinema and watched it every night for a month on streaming. 'West Side Story' though... Despite being devoted to Spielberg's work since I was a boy, I didn't go to see that film because I've already seen the same story in Robert Wise's West Side Story and I felt Spielberg was doing what everyone was doing: remakes. I did see it eventually. It's well made but not interesting enough to watch more than once (not many Spielberg films fall into that category for me).

there's no tg2 because rights issue

Trailers giving away all the best parts of a film is nothing new though. Thanks to RU-vid, we can see they’ve been doing that since the sixties. See the trailer and you’ve basically seen the film. The only answer is to avoid them (how?!)

I do t care that’s it’s part 1. Those movies are great. I’ll watch 2 of them. But it opened on a bad weekend

Mickey needs money for crack.

Thank joe Biden for inflation. Everything cost more lately

@hackthemovies can you believe this guy? 🤷🏻‍♂️