that's a ridiculous cost for Cars 2, how could it go from 120 (first Cars) to 200m+,,,

Cars 2 Budget > Transformers 3 Budget?

Was Cars 2 a rushed project? Now with the cost adding onto the reviews as possible evidence here.

Umm, the first one made 460m WW, nearly 250m in dvd sales, and grossed billions in merchandising, you really think they give a fuck about an extra 80m in the budget of the sequel? You people are talking like animation should have a standard budget, when in reality the budget is going to be drastically different depending on the appeal and prestige of the film. When a film is as successful as all of the Pixar films are you really think the studio is going to be pushy with the directors and insist on keeping tight budgets? God there seems to be a lot more talking out of the ass lately.

While I do agree that the budget is not really HUGE for a good looking animation as Cars 2, still it should have been a little lesser say $150m....I know the marketing has been aggressive still $150m is not less amount, though given what Pixar is earning these days this budget could be called affordable. Anyways with Pixar movies doing so well I am sure they would have increased the paychecks overall.

You can just read this article that shows how much money these guys are spending to make one scene look perfect
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/c ... sed-204725
I am sure there will be a lot more like these.

And I agree that Blue Sky does not have great animation still they make movies at quite a lesser costs, so it evens out in the end. Its not like spending more money will get them better stories, so that is a moot point

You realize they had to animate London, Paris, Rome and Tokyo, not to mention wherever else they have included.

One thing you can say about Pixar is they are dedicated and thorough. Animating 4+ cities plus making basically 2 movies, the racing and the spy stuff, means this is expected.

I don't get it. What has one thing to do with the other?

No, this is excessive. A relatively short animation movie should not be more expensive than a movie like Transformers 3. As far as i know, location shooting is still more expensive than CGI.

They don't actually blow up buildings you know.

If you have ever seen a Pixar movie, detail is king. They aren't going to half-bake animate it even if Cars 2 has a half-baked story.

You may think it's excessive but the animators probably visited all four or five countries as well to properly justify the cities.

What's the standard then? Rio's 90m budget was evident in the film.

Even KFP2 wasn't on a Pixar-esque scale.

KFP2's animation wasn't as bad as you are saying it to be...no doubt Pixar's is better and Blue Sky's animation is comparatively weak still $200m for a 90 minute movie is too much......I don't think there is a standard but there are (if not then someone has to find them) efficient ways of making good animated movies in controlled budgets. Most of all the animated movie budgets are too high IMO.

Pixar's budgets have already been hovering around that mark (Wall-E was at 180m)...it makes sense. I imagine a lot of people involved are more expensive the second time around.

How is 200 million too high? Part of Pixar's reputation stems from how high the quality of their animation is. If they cheaped out on the animation, their reputation would suffer and the gap between them and DW/Blu Sky would be much narrow. You need to spend money to make money and the rate of return on their investment more than justifies the 200 million dollars spent on the film.

Why are we faulting them for being fantastic instead of good?

Look at Rio. The city had some brilliant animation, everything else was pretty mediocre, it shows.

Animation may be second, but the quality of the animation is one of the key factors of Pixar's reputation.

+1

It may not be a good analogy but, it's like having believable secondary characters/extras in drama or epic films. It adds to the production value. You don't want to see a historical epic about ancient Greece with a fellow wielding a machine gun in the background or having the army be Chinese.

Eh, $200 million buidget...so what? They know exactly that it'll more than pay off.

50 million is chump change when you make 10 billion dollars off of merchandise.

You're arguing that their animation quality is too good, Magnus. Why the hell do you care about their bottom line?

If I remember correctly the license fee for merchandising is somewhere between 8 to 12 % (only STAR WARS merchandise is more expensive for the toy companies)...
So $10b in merchandising means somewhere between $0.8b to $1.2b in pure profit for Disney/Pixar...

You're right, they don't. Be thankful that they do.

$30m LARRY CROWNE
$20m MONTE CARLO

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/

Wow, domestically both will be bigger success stories than Transformers 3.

...and Pirates 3, Spiderman 3 etc., hell, even Pirates 2, considering its $300m budget and who knows how much marketing.

No. Pirates 2's budget was $225 million.

I thought i heard it was in the ballpark of $600m for both sequels together...