I notice that the budgets for the major movies for 2005 is ACTUALLY alot cheaper than the 2004 films
2005
Batman Begins $135,000,000
Star Wars:Revenge of the Sith $115,000,000
King Kong $110,000,000
War of the Worlds $128,000,000
Kingdom of Heaven $130,000,000
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire $130,000,000

2004
Spiderman 2 $200,000,000
Alexander $155,000,000
Troy $175,000,000
King Arthur $120,000,000
Chronicles of Riddick $105,000,000
Ocean's 12 $110,000,000
Around the World in 80 days $110,000,000
I Robot $120,000,000
Day After Tommorrow $125,000,000

Jeez did they cut the budgets of movie drastically for tentpole movies. I would think movies like King Kong or Batman would receive a higher budget than Day After Tommorrow or I Robot

Even the releases in 2003 Matrix Reloaded, T3, and the Pirates of the Carrebean exceeded the budgets for 2005

Was it just them slashing the budgets big time due to underperformance of some movies the past 2 years

Maybe the studios are finally learning their lesson on putting big money to absolute failures... :razz:

The estimated budget for King Kong is $130m - $150m.

(some sources say $150m, whereas others say NZ$200m, which is about $130m)

These Estimates will increase, no doubt.

It's just cause fewer big sequels. 2004 was year of the sequels.

The budgets for non-sequels like Troy and Alexander exceeded 150 million so Im doubtful it has to do with sequels. Heck even DAT's budget of 130 million seems very large for a movie without a fanbase or isnt a sequel

I think part of it may be that as CGI technology becomes more mature, it is also becoming cheaper to create the shots. They can be made in less time with less personnel.
A lot of the ramp up in costs of film making has been the enormous cost of special effect shots and the demand and need for more and more of them in every film.

Well, yes. I believe it has never been too expensive, if you look at the budgets of the Cgi animations of last year, they were all under $100million, which is not expensive by todays standards.

Didn't they announce way back that Harry Potter 4's budget was 300 million? Maybe they drastically lowered that after seeing the domestic total of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkbaban....

Even with a 300 million budget, they'd still make a huge profit.

No, Newel said he wanted a 300 million dollar budget, but it was never an accurate figure.

Azkaban is the 14th highest grossing film of all time, worldwide. It did better than The Phantom Menace, Spider-Man 1 and 2, Shrek 2, and Finding Nemo outside the US. and I don't think they are necessairly hurting from the HP3 performance. In this deflated cinema market, I would be very careful in labeling Harry Potter 3 as any kind of disappointment.

I'm not saying it was a disappointment, just that they wanted to maximize their profit.

Kingdom of Heaven is setting itself up for a disappointment. It would be an absolute miracle if it made more than Troy domestically.

The budget is at least $150m. Jackson himself has stated that in his deal with Universal, that was the sum he required. He said it was a reasonable figure because half a dozen films shooting around the same time were near the $200m area, if not above it.