Hey everyone. Working on a new video, and since we've been watching Kurosawa films like Ran in the discord server, I've had the idea to talk a bit about the most expensive movies ever made.
Kurosawa's Ran had a budget of about 12 million, and had 1400 extras, 200 horses, and an entire castle built that they burn down in the movie. 1922's Foolish Wives was the "first million dollar movie" and used 326,000 feet of film over the course of an 11 month shoot, where a lead actor died, the director was arrested, and the studio had to steal the cameras to stop them from filming. The Lion King (2019) is tied for the most expensive animated film ever made, at $260 million, and it just recreates the original movie shot-for-shot with hyperrealistic VFX.
I'm making this video short, to keep it simple and also to get it out in time for an upcoming sponsor. But I want to talk a bit about why movies are getting so expensive, and some notable cases of movies going way over budget. If you have any thoughts or examples, let me know!