District 9 costs 30 mill to make. Elysium cost 100 mil to make. Why?

cheaper to make movies in South Africa, we have tons of actors and film crews who will work for food or just the fun of it.
 
I'm sure many favors were asked on Neil's first feature film. Especially the VFX companies. He paid proper rates this time around. Elysium has a bigger scope on the visuals too. And yes wages are much higher this time around including Neil's.
 
The financial answer: because it can be. D9 was a big success and filmmakers are usually rewarded in such cases with larger budgets. From the filmmakers perspective, there are so many things you can get with that added budget (better gear, bigger stars, etc.) that it seems obvious to most that you take that opportunity.


The creative answer: because Elysium is a much bigger movie in scale. Elysium itself (the station) is far more complex than any effect in D9.
 
What's interesting is that Blomkamp has said repeatedly, he didn't feel like he was "free to do whatever he wanted" after D9. Said he feels like he might be there now, after Elysium.

I think the budget all comes down to the fact that this is a Hollywood studio movie through and through, whereas D9 was anything but. You can't get away with not paying for things on a H-wood studio movie, even if the studio wanted to replicate the low-budget formula of D9.

-EMB
 
A couple of points...

First, Hollywood is notorious for creative budgeting -- often putting expenses for one movie onto the budget of another. So the stated budget of any Hollywood studio movie is, at best, a vague approximation of reality.

Second, to those talking about whether or not a movie made a profit at the box office, I would remind you that most of a movie's revenue comes not at the theater, but from the DVD release -- pay-per-view, rentals, purchases, HBO/Showtime, cable TV and ultimately broadcast TV. And those figures are much harder to nail down.
 
David W. Richardson said:
A couple of points...

First, Hollywood is notorious for creative budgeting -- often putting expenses for one movie onto the budget of another. So the stated budget of any Hollywood studio movie is, at best, a vague approximation of reality.

Second, to those talking about whether or not a movie made a profit at the box office, I would remind you that most of a movie's revenue comes not at the theater, but from the DVD release -- pay-per-view, rentals, purchases, HBO/Showtime, cable TV and ultimately broadcast TV. And those figures are much harder to nail down.
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Money has a time value. Also, you cannot sustain a business if you don't have a revenue stream to keep producing product.

Here's a simple example that illustrates why box office money is so important and can make or break a studio.

Let's say you make cameras. You make a camera for 180 bucks and sell it for 200 bucks. Your profit is 20 dollars, the rest is spent on labor, supplies, accounting, insurance, marketing, etc.

So a customer buys a camera and you go spend 100 bucks on supplies, the housing, chips, etc. You can make another camera, sell it, make another 20 bucks, the business is humming along.

Let's say a customer says I'll take the camera and pay you 10 dollars a month and in 20 months, almost two years you'll get the same price of the camera.

You still make 20 bucks right? So it's all good? Not so fast. This means that it will be 10 months before you have enough money to buy supplies to make another camera. So you have lost 10 months of camera sales. Not only that your camera has a shelf life. Soon enough it's the old camera and you can't sell it for 200 bucks any more so waiting that 10 months REALLY hurts.

Same with film. The studio needs the money NOW, so they can make another film. Waiting for DVD sales, netflix revenue, etc., takes time which means they aren't producing another film and they are losing money. Also, the shelf life of a film is limited, it's worth less and less over time as it becomes last years film and people want to see this years film. Just look at DVD prices in Wal Mart.

Making money "eventuallY' is better than nothing, but it doesn't help keep you in business like the money you make NOW.
 
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I've always despised the fact that the big name actors take a huge chunk of the multimillion dollar budget, while the tech and creative crew take a tiny percentage.
 
EDV said:
I've always despised the fact that the big name actors take a huge chunk of the multimillion dollar budget, while the tech and creative crew take a tiny percentage.
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Brad Pitt puts more butts in the seats than joe the camera man. There are plenty of Joe the Camera men to choose from, not an unlimited supply but plenty that will do a good job. There is only one Brad Pitt taht puts butts in seats to see a Brad Pitt movie.

Why should this upset you? It's called supply and demand. There is much demand for Brad Pitt to star in a movie, and only one Brad Pitt. There is not nearly as much demand for Joe the Cameraman and much more supply.
 
Brad Pitt is just an actor. Literally thousands of other equally good actors can replace him... and a large number of us viewers quite like to see an unknown actor play a lead role in a major blockbuster. Seen the celebrity actor in the film is a constant reminder I am watching something that isn't real... and that really puts me off.
 
Put Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Jodie Foster along with Denzel Washington in a movie where the film crew refused to take part of, and see what sort of "Blockbuster" they end up with.
 
David W. Richardson said:
...I would remind you that most of a movie's revenue comes not at the theater, but from the DVD release -- pay-per-view, rentals, purchases, HBO/Showtime, cable TV and ultimately broadcast TV. And those figures are much harder to nail down.
Click to expand...

The DVD release doesn't earn much anymore. Ten years ago it was the profit in most movie's spreadsheets with box office recouping the production and marketing costs. Now that DVD is gone as a major revenue stream, the studios are still trying to figure out how to make money on a lot of these movies. A growing international market is helping, but their tastes aren't always the same as domestic, so that complicates things.
Streaming, PPV, cable/broadcast are all down as revenue too because of the dillution of the market.
All this means that box office is more important than ever for most Hollywood movies.
 
EDV said:
Put Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise and Jodie Foster along with Denzel Washington in a movie where the film crew refused to take part of, and see what sort of "Blockbuster" they end up with.
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How does that justify paying a camera man more than the going rate? If the camera man refuses to work, I'll just get another one that wants to make some money.

Brad Pitt is going to do one movie this year. If you want that to be YOUR movie, you pay Brad Pitts rate, or you don't get him.

If you don't want Brad Pitt in your movie, feel free to cast someone else. If you think you can make as much money with an unknown as youc an make with Brad Pitt you should definitely cast the unknown because you will make more profit on your movie.

I would say if it's YOUR money, feel free to cast however you like and pay the cast and crew however you want to.

If what you are saying is true then go out and start making blockbuster movies with actors no one has ever heard of and put all the Hollywood actors out of work. No one is stopping you.
 
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