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How in the world did Star Wars cost so little to make?

Discussion in 'Star Wars Saga In-Depth' started by skgai1, Apr 6, 2008.

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  1. skgai1

    skgai1 Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2005
    Look at the budgets for the films.

    Star Wars: Ended up around $10-11 million.
    Empire Strikes Back: Ended up around $30-35 million.
    Return of the Jedi: $32.5 milion
    The Phantom Menace: $115 million
    Attack of the Clones: $115 million
    Revenge of the Sith: $113 million

    Let's take a look at other films.

    Titanic: $200 million
    Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End: $300 million
    Spider-Man 3: $258 million

    How did Lucas keep costs so low and why don't studios do the same. Its ridiculous for a movie to cost $200 million especially in 1997. Seriously what did he do right. Was it the not-so-big actors, the scheduling of reshoots ahead of time, his reliability on post-production? His use of digital film?
     
  2. lawnmowerman603

    lawnmowerman603 Jedi Youngling star 2

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    Jun 23, 2002
    Remind me which one of the originals got the biggest overhaul in 1997.

    As for the prequels, I remember the running joke was that it would've been way more expensive if Lucas didn't own ILM.
     
  3. KennethMorgan

    KennethMorgan Jedi Youngling star 2

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    Sep 29, 2004
    You have to remember that, except for "Star Wars", Lucas pretty much financed the other movies himself, with little or no money coming from 20th. Hence, there was an incentive for keeping costs as low as necessary.
     
  4. zombie

    zombie Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 4, 1999
    A typical film cost between $3-8 million back then. Thats how. Things just weren't expensive. Star Wars was actually on the high end of a medium-sized budget. It would be like making a $70 million film today.
     
  5. skgai1

    skgai1 Jedi Youngling star 2

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    Nov 1, 2005
    Trust me, distributors want to keep costs as low as possible. Disney actually does this quite well. There budgets are more often than not below $50 million. They don't care about a director's vision they just want to the get the movie made in as little amount of time and money as possible. That's obviously not true for all there films, but for The Game Plan, College Road Trip, etc. it is.

    Things just weren't expensive? Of course they were! They just weren't $100 million-expensive because of inflation. How they made that first Star Wars on a medium-sized budge (high-end) I still don't understand. The effects for 2001 alone was the entire atincipated budget of Star Wars.
     
  6. Darthbane2007

    Darthbane2007 Jedi Master star 4

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    Oct 31, 2007
    Well, you have to remember, mostly everybody that worked on Star Wars thought that it wasn't going to be as big as it got. Lucas had a hard time getting 20th century fox to Finance the film.
     
  7. zombie

    zombie Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 4, 1999
    No, 2001 was extraordinarily expensive for its day, and it didn't make back its cost until years after it came out. This was in the days of Cleopatra and other mega-budget epics. Even then, its estimated budget is the same as Star Wars--roughly $10 million, though in 1967 dollars that was much more.

    Here are some useful comparisons:

    MASH (1970): $3 million
    Godfather (1972): $6 million
    Exorcist (1973): $10 million
    Battle for Planet of the Apes (1973): $2 million
    Conversation (1974): $2 million
    Godfather II (1974): $13 million (expensive!)
    Earthquake (1974): $7 million
    Airport 75 (1974): $3 million
    Nashville (1975): $2 million
    Jaws (1975): $12 million
    Taxi Driver (1976): $2 million
    Logans Run (1976): $9 million
    Annie Hall (1977): $4 million
    Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977): $4 million

    With a budget of roughly $10 million, Star Wars was a pretty big budget picture for its day, made in a big studio, filmed in exotic locations, and using lots of special effects. It was not a small film, it was huge. Lucasfilm likes to portray it as the little film that could but it was a big budget studio picture. It had not much support from most of the Fox board of directors, but in terms of scale and cost it was well funded. Lucas made it look like it had been made for about $15 million because of the way he shot it, and it was originally only given $8 million, but even that is among the more expensive pictures of its day.
    As I said, movies back then didn't cost as much, and dollar inflation was of course much less.
     
  8. lawnmowerman603

    lawnmowerman603 Jedi Youngling star 2

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    Jun 23, 2002
    Star Wars could only really be considered low budget by comparison to the movies that would be made very soon in the years following 1977. Just the other week I was listening to Ridley Scott's commentary on Blade Runner where he says "look, I'm not going to mention what the big budget films of the time were because we all know what they were, but I figure I was around medium budget range (for 1982) at 20 million."

    Maybe this is what people are thinking of when they say that Star Wars created the concept of the blockbuster movie.
     
  9. zombie

    zombie Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 4, 1999
    After Star Wars, budgets soared, yes. Part of it was because there was a sort outdo-each-other competition that didn't really come about until after Star Wars, part of it is that the whole "blockbuster" thing didn't take off until after Star Wars, but part of it was also that the cost of production skyrocketed between 1977 and 1980, which is one of the reasons ESB cost three times the original.
     
  10. skgai1

    skgai1 Jedi Youngling star 2

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    Nov 1, 2005
    My point was that Star Wars cost less than 2001's effects budget (which was huge no doubt, but still bigger than a 1968 film). I know that most films were less expensive than Star Wars, but as you said Star Wars did more with less. I want to know why. I realize Star Wars a pretty big budget film thing, but there were other films that had bigger budgets that didn't look so good. Why?
     
  11. zombie

    zombie Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 4, 1999
    Star Wars didn't cost less than 2001's FX budget though--its total budget was the exact same as 2001's total budget, which is roughly $10 million. And Star Wars cost way more than most picture's of its day--it even cost more than the star-studed big-budget action films of its time like Earthquake. Exorcist and Jaws cost more than Star Wars, but those both went way overbudget, their original cost was supposed to be the same as Lucas' film. Godfather II is the real exception--but that was the sequel to the most successful film of all time.

    Why does Star Wars look so much better? In terms of cinematography, design and technical merits--it doesn't. Its a little rough around the edges. Its on par with other films of its day--Jaws and Godfather II, for example, are way more slick. In terms of creativity it was more imaginative because of the people involved, McQuarrie, John Berry, John Mollo, etc., and they knew how to get the most bang for their buck. The only thing that was really advanced beyond anything else before it was the special effects. These looked good because John Dykstra totally re-invented the process, allowing better visuals, faster output and cheaper cost. So thats the real reason why on an FX level the space battle was a kick in the pants at the time.

    But you are right, Lucas really put his money on the screen, even though it had a $10 million budget it still looks like more, it looks like $12-15 million, and its purely because they knew where to cut corners. Really the film was a $15 million movie--thats the scope and scale that it was written for. But Lucas had to make it for less, so he had to just compromise, cut corners and work himself to death. Thats why he always says how hard it was and how low budget it was--it wasn't low budget at all, but it must have felt that way because every day he was compromising himself because the film had such an immense vision that it could not even be done on a $10 million budget. They used a lot of tricks to bring down the cost--using mirrors to hide seams, using cardboard cutouts so they
     
  12. Vortigern99

    Vortigern99 Manager Emeritus star 5 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Nov 12, 2000
    Good answer. =D=
     
  13. Darth_Davi

    Darth_Davi Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Jul 29, 2005
    The cost of Star Wars also includes the complete rebuilding of most of the Tatooine sets, because of a fierce Tunisian storm. Without that storm forcing the additional costs to rebuild all of the Tatooine stuff, it wouldn't have cost as much. Overall though, Lucas made a LOT of good choices in how he saved money. He didn't take the standard director/writers fee, instead took a flat fee and merchandising, which saved the studio a lot of money up front, which ultimately became a HUGE mistake from the studio's perspective...not so much a mistake by Lucas though, LOL Then, there was his decision to pretty much hire actors that weren't well known. Other than Alec Guinness and Peter Cushing, most people didn't have a clue who Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford or Carrie Fisher were. Had Lucas relied on well known actors, they would have demanded larger payrolls. As Zombie points out, he got EXTREMELY lucky with John Dykstra and the formation of ILM. They were basically inventing special effects from scratch. If I recall correctly, ILM spent about half of the budget just by themselves, because they had to invent new effects, not merely apply existing ones. That kind of R&D costs money. Had they just been using already existing effects, the 5 million ILM spent would have been ridiculous. But, for the invention of brand new effects, the creation of the greatest special effects company ever, 5 million dollars was a steal, really. That Lucas could accomplish it all, with that budget, and still manage to achieve what he wanted, is truly remarkable.

    Its funny that you compared Star Wars to Jaws and the Godfather part II, Zombie...considering Steven Spielberg (Jaws) and Francis Ford Coppola (GFII) are two of George's best friends in the entire world...
     
  14. zombie

    zombie Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 4, 1999
    If I recall, this actually wasn't that big a deal. The only set they had was the Sandcrawler, and it wasn't rebuilt from scratch, just repaired and pieced back together. Remember, the homestead was an indiginous Tunisian settlement, they just added a couple moisture vaporators, so there really wasn't much to be destroyed.
     
  15. Darth_Davi

    Darth_Davi Jedi Padawan star 4

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    Jul 29, 2005
    Its not just the actual cost of reconstructing it...besides the labor and replacement material, when needed, its the delay to the schedule, its the additional time spent, the extra hours that have to be paid for. For every day delayed by having to fix it, they lost money. Maybe it was only a few hundred thousand dollars lost, but, Lucas didn't have a few hundred thousand dollars to splurge with...that setback was an added cost that had to be paid for somehow...and he still managed to make it all work, against all odds.
     
  16. deadlyfries

    deadlyfries Jedi Youngling

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    Feb 25, 2008
    Skip the statistics for a second. Lucas chose lame actors, thus costing less. [face_skull]
     
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