Studios unfazed as films top $100M
By Marshall Fine
Westchester (N.Y.) Journal News
When did $100 million stop being a lot of money? The answer, apparently, is 2003.
According to the Internet Movie Database, seven movies released this year have had budgets of $100 million or more, including the last "Matrix" film, "Matrix Revolutions." The most expensive, "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," cost $175 million.
At least three more $100-million-plus films are scheduled for release before year's end ("Master and Commander," "Peter Pan" and "The Last Samurai"). Five other 2003 films cost $90 million to $100 million.
But there has been none of the uproar that greeted "Terminator 2" when it broke the barrier in 1991, or "Titanic," when it soared higher in 1997.
In Hollywood, apparently, sticker-shock is a thing of the past.
"About 20 years ago, a movie that cost $41 million bankrupted this company," says United Artists president Bingham Ray, referring to Michael Cimino's notorious "Heaven's Gate." "That freaked everybody out at the time: $41 million! Now people don't bat an eye; $40 million is considered a low-budget Hollywood film."
That might be one of the after-effects of "Titanic," which became a cause celebre when its budget ballooned over $100 million. When "Titanic" went on to gross more than $600 million in the United States alone, the $100 million barrier stopped looking as daunting.
"It's a whole new world, where everything is pumped-up and inflated," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations, which tracks box-office figures. "With the average film costing $75 million, you're going to have to have a lot of them that are over $100 million to get to that average. Which is why we see the trend of studios splitting the cost, the risk and the profit on big films by teaming up."
"Titanic" was a joint production between Paramount and Twentieth Century-Fox. Subsequent $100 million productions have followed that model.
"The studios are sharing the risk," says Geoff Gilmore, artistic director of the Sundance Film Festival. "And the industry is a much more internationally diverse industry, so risk can be written off — by foreign sales and ancillary markets — well before the film is even released. Even movies that didn't do well in theaters can do well in the DVD universe."
What kind of movie costs $100 million? Usually, they're the ones associated with summer months, featuring comic-book heroes with super-powers, outrageous pyrotechnics, crashing cars and eye-popping visual effects.
But the latest in computer-generated imagery costs money. So do actors' salaries, which have been spiraling upward since Jim Carrey became the first actor to get $20 million for one film ("The Cable Guy," 1996).
"The films that seem to really make an impression are one of two types," says Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, which specializes in independent and foreign films. "Either they're huge blockbusters that emphasize the kind of presentation that you can't get in your home. Or they're low-budget, edgy movies that emanate from something you've never seen before, like 'Memento' or 'American Splendor.' "
If the studios are less frightened by mammoth price tags, not everyone is sanguine about the burgeoning cost of big-budget films.
"If you blow things up and create a whole universe of extensive effects, and you're paying stars $20 million or more, there's no avoiding that $100 million figure," says Mark Urman, head of U.S. distribution for ThinkFilm, an independent company. "The problem is that, when you do, you're economically obligated to make a movie that appeals to absolutely everybody on the planet — and you tend to make a movie that doesn't satisfy anyone. Size and quality are often inimical."
Some point out that the National Endowment of the Arts' proposed budget for the current year is only $117 million and wonder about the message that's sent when a studio spends $130 million on a movie such as "Bad Boys II." And, some would argue, all that money still can't buy truly believable special effects. "It surprised me to find out 'X2' cost $100 million because all I could think was, 'Where did the money go?' " says Joe Queenan, former film critic for Movieline magazine.
If the $100 million price tag no longer intimidates studios, what does? Nothing, it seems, if the cost-benefit analysis looks favorable.
Says Brandon Gray of BoxOfficeMojo: "... I think a spectacular, summer-style blockbuster with a $200 million budget is viable. Of course, if it doesn't work, then someone will raise a stink."
