Dune Part Two has finally been released, and TikTok is flooded with reactions praising the film, especially its visuals. This has sparked a conversation reminiscent of recent spectacle-filled blockbusters like Oppenheimer before it. Namely, "How did we get a film like this on such a small budget?" These films were, by no means, cheap. Dune Part Two is reported to have cost around $190 million, and Oppenheimer was reported to cost $100 million. Though not insignificant, it feels like that money is vividly portrayed on the screen. Star-studded casts, massive practical stunts, gorgeous and immersive CGI, and a thunderous score, written and performed by the greats of this generation of films.
However, when we look at films with even higher production costs, questions surrounding value arise:
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania - Just shy of $200 million.
Indian Jones and The Dial of Destiny - an eye-watering,$294.7 million
Fast X - A whopping $340 million
The Flash - Somewhere between $220 to $300 million
Have you seen these films? It's difficult to argue that their value is as evident on the screen.
Filmmaking is an expensive business. Actors, especially A-listers, don’t come cheap; Barbie co-stars Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling were reported to have earned $59 Million and $43 million, respectively, in 2023 (across all projects). Then comes crew cost, effects, props, music and marketing on top of an ever-expanding list. With all these expenses, it's not surprising that film budgets are astronomical.
Production companies and Studios are notoriously elusive about their spending habits. This is where a practice, colloquially called “Hollywood Accounting”, comes in. This is not one practice per se, but a series of practices across the industry that turn a, seemingly, successful movie, into a financial failure. One practice involves the creation of a company that represents a film, for example, Gone in 60 Seconds, which is charged a fee by the studio (usually “distribution” costs) which contributes to the total costs and therefore cuts into the total net profits. This is explained by Edward Jay Epstein with Planet Money, utilising Gone In 60 Seconds as an example.
How does this happen? Well, it comes down to the difference between Net Profits, and Gross Profits. David Prowse, the body actor for Darth Vader, has never received a net profit payment from his work in Return of the Jedi. Prowse pointed out why the difference matters in an interview with Equity magazine:
“There is a big difference between having a share of the gross profit and having a share of the net profit. It is a huge difference in just one word. Sometimes, with net profit, with all the expenses and so on, it seems like you end up paying them.”
Is this really a big deal? I mean, movies are still being made, and the entertainment industry is suffering under greater forces, such as the failures of streaming, challenges caused by COVID-19 and a market oversaturated with sequels, remakes and adaptations. But as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023 show, many of the creatives behind your favourite content are frustrated.
WGA and SAG-AFTRA’s concerns were not just monetary: working conditions, Artificial Intelligence, Deepfake technology and future protections were chief among complaints. But royalties and pay were one concern, and many actors have challenged Hollywood Accounting practices. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, as producers of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, along with the film’s writer Nia Vardalos, sued a producer of the project over unpaid fees they were owed as a percentage of net profits. Before the Disney buyout of 21st Century Fox, the television series Bones was the subject of a major lawsuit concerning money owed from profits made by the show. Lead actors, Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz, along with producer Kathy Reichs, were awarded $179 million.
This is where the issue of policing “Hollywood Accounting” comes in. There is no way to police it. Studios frequently settle cases or pay out their fines and continue the practices. Unless you are actively involved in the production of a film, you would never know if a film has been slyly fudging the numbers. To that end, was The Flash secretly inflating its production cost? The answer to that is a shrug and a defeated, “Who knows?”
I’m sure you’re thinking, why should this matter to you? We’ll never know anyway and creatives are not shy about chasing up suspicious accounting to make sure they’re paid and, as far as it seems, we’re not losing out on any movies.
You’re right. As a viewer, you shouldn’t care, past the point of people being paid what they are owed. Why, as filmgoers and TV watchers, are we cheering and booing the financial performance of the entertainment we watch?
A new approach to filmgoing has appeared in recent years, turning the act of movie-going into a team sport. There will always be the side of filmmaking that is interested in the behind-the-scenes number-crunching, however, this has transferred to the Big Franchises are the most notorious victims of this, resulting from the “voting with your wallet” mentality. Fans of DC’s “Snyderverse” were frustrated with the performance of films within Zack Snyder’s superhero universe. Snyder-fans have concocted conspiracies of paid-off critics to justify the poor performance of the director’s films, such as in this Reddit post where commenters discuss an article about a PR firm artificially bumping the Rotten Tomatoes scores of smaller indie movies (a descriptor that would be impossible to place on a Zack Snyder movie).
Actors have even taken part in this. Despite, poor reviews and underwhelming performance, The Rock was adamant to publicly tout the profits of his Black Adam movie. Not to suggest it is embarrassing for an actor of his fame to be this defensive online about his superhero movie’s performance, but with the knowledge that he likely won’t be returning as Black Adam, it certainly makes you wince.
With all this focus on the money a film makes, it’s a wonder that there are any creatives left working in the industry solely because they love filmmaking.
During the New York Film Festival in 2023, Martin Scorcese, director of Taxi Driver and most recently Killers of the Flower Moon, ascended the stage to introduce the documentary, Personality Crisis: One Night Only . Within this introduction, he raised a salient point about the obsession with film financing.
“The emphasis is now on numbers, cost, the opening weekend, how much it made in the U.S.A., how much it made in England, how much it made in Asia, how much it made in the entire world, how many viewers it got… I always found it really insulting… There are no awards here. You don’t have to compete. You just have to love cinema here.”
Scorcese’s point was aimed at the creatives he shared the room with that day, but I think the message is important for us as viewers. The finance side is not for us to figure out or work through. We as an audience should not be beholden to the economic side of filmmaking and just enjoy the art that we want to enjoy. Never feel guilty or pressured into watching something, with the hope it makes enough money to justify its existence. Nor diminish the creative efforts of others because they failed to be profitable for the Studio which risked it all on another mega-blockbuster. Most of the time, a film's impact is not defined by its box office report, but by the viewers.
With that in mind, I feel it is poignant to remind you of some films that “flopped" at the box office:
Fight Club - Probably the defining roles of Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, as well as one of the best adaptations of all time.
The King of Comedy - An underappreciated, Scorcese, classic that was the inspiration for Todd Phillips’ Joker
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World - Possibly, Edgar Wright’s best exhibition of his skills as an energetic, music-orientated director.
Blade Runner 2049 - Touted as one of the Greatest Sci-Fi films of all time.
Donny Darko - or as I know it “the film with that creepy ass bunny suit” (which was also apparently in Call of Duty, for some reason.)
Mulholland Drive - What will likely become the most argued-about film of all time as viewers claw, desperately to find the meaning imposed by David Lynch.
The Thing - The director of your favourite Horror Film’s, favourite horror film.