Sarah Calderon
Mr. Reuter
Economics B2
26 April 2016
Avengers: Infinity War—Soaring Budget
In the movie business, blockbuster films have to shell out big bucks to fill theatre seats. One film company has been known to spend millions upon millions of dollars—Marvel. Recent Marvel films such as Avengers: Age of Ultron, had a budget of nearly $250 million. However, the company has exciting, and expensive, plans for future films: the next 2-part Avengers film, Avengers: Infinity War, scheduled to be released in 2018 and 2019, will possibly have a budget of nearly $1 billion dollars! The company's thinking is to make a larger profit—they spent almost $250 million on the last Avengers film and made a billion in ticket sales. By putting more money into both Part I and II of Infinity War, they hope to come out with hefty profit of $4 billion.
So where’s all this money going to anyway? An article released by The Guardian explains what really goes into making a movie; its “anatomy”, as Sean O'Connell mentions, is more than simply shooting the movie. It’s writing the script and developing the film’s story-board ($10 mil), paying the producers ($15 mil) and director ($10 mil). Let’s not forget the cast ($30 mil) and production crew ($45 mil). Then there’s special effects, which in the article describing Spiderman’s cost, was upwards of $65 million. However, this is the expense that Marvel will increase for the last Avengers films. While the movie industry has always set aside the majority of their editing budgets for special effects, a $1 billion dollar budget could possibly result in a $260 million editing budget; so even though movie tickets are a fairly elastic product since they’re not a necessity, isn’t knowing that they’ll have the best effects of any Marvel movie ever made enough to make you want to see it? Especially when realizing that ticket prices will still be the same? Marvel knows this, and by increasing their budget dramatically, they hope to increase the demand for their latest films.
This increase in spending isn’t just for creating digital scenery and amping up explosions or destruction either; it’s the costumes, lighting, makeup, etc. that really bring your favorite heroes to life. Costume designers spend countless hours creating costumes (and extras, just in case), all while ensuring that it matches up to Marvel comics fans expectations—ones who might otherwise be disappointed if their Avengers heroes aren’t portrayed right. With this knowledge that details of their work could affect consumer taste, costume designers have to be meticulous in researching what the costumes should look like, while ensuring that they look good on camera. There are also dozens of makeup artists, all of which have to spend time making the cast camera-ready, in some cases even creating prosthetics.
As you can see from the photos above, creating prosthetics, even for a character with only a few minutes of screen time like The Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron, is an extremely tedious process (and a costly one). Just applying the makeup to the actor or actress can take up to 3 hours, an investment movie companies are willing to make in order to make their heroes truly come alive on-screen. Overall while Marvel’s heroes, as well as their budget, soar skyward, the promise of increased revenue along with excited Marvel fans seems worth the risk.
Works Cited
O'Connell, Sean. "The Supposed Avengers: Infinity War Budget Is Almost Shocking." Movie News. Cinema Blend, 09 Oct. 2015. Web.
20 Apr. 2016.
Thomas, Archie. “Anatomy of a Blockbuster.” Movies. The Guardian, 10 June 2004. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
The movie business is a huge one, and Marvel, owned now by Disney, is especially huge. The marvel movies are favored by many of all ages. The fact that they have such a large fan base shows that they can make a good profit. The multi-millions they put into their movies are nothing compared to what they can pull out of them. There is probably a limit though to what they are capable of profiting on, and I feel like this budget of one billion dollars might just be on the edge of that. Hopefully though, it will be worth all of their money (and the viewers') to make some good movies.
ReplyDeleteI have to say--reading this article was very interesting. I understand that things like special effects can be expensive, but sometimes I wonder if actors/actresses really need to be paid millions of dollars for the type of work they do.
ReplyDeleteWhen a big production is in the works, especially from a large, successful produce like Marvel, Those who are making the movie want to stay on the cutting edge, especially in fields like special effects. The tech used for the effects i improving all the time, and the latest innovations are bound to be expensive. I think it's a safe bet to think that the cost to produce movies is only going to go up. I think Marvels not just spending so much because they can, but because they have to to keep up with the new tech.
ReplyDeleteKelin Olson
I didn't realize that the director was getting paid as much as the funding for the script writing and storyboarding, it seems a little outrageous to fork over an equivalent amount of pay to one person as entire teams of people. It's also sad that over 65 million dollars were spent just to get to legally have Spiderman in the movie, I mean I'm excited to see him in action with the rest of the Avengers, but why was so much budget spent for him to appear especially when technically Wolverine also belongs on screen with them. Whoever ends up playing Spiderman better get his character right for that tremendous fee.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Marvel's way of thinking. The last few Marvel movies were good enough to have people want to see it again in theaters. If this one is better than those than people who would usually just wait for the dvd to come out or for it to air on television would probably rush the theaters. Although you might want to touch on how dvd sales fit into their profit as well as merchandise. there is still a lot of untapped potential in merchandising that you could have touched on. very well researched.
ReplyDeleteThis movie, as well as Captain America 3: Civil War, have fans raving. They are excited to see the plot twists and special effects the directors and writers are creating and this will definitely up the demand for this movie. Being a big Marvel fan myself I know that the amount of money they're putting into these movies will have a definite pay off when they hit the theaters, but not only will the movie make money, the theaters will too. Opening weekends for big films like this really create a spike in economic activity. Not only does the movie make millions in ticket sales, but the workers at the movie theaters make bank working these premieres and the movie theaters makes a lot in concession sales as well! Good article, I myself am really looking forward to this movie as well as Civil War!!
ReplyDeleteEvery studio has taken risks while bringing things to the big screen, even though many studios aren't willing to do some risky things. Marvel's movie franchise has made so much money that it is guaranteed to bring back a metric ton of cash regardless of how good it is, and the obvious notion that it is a two parter means double the ticket sales. Marvel investing more into things like costume design and actor payment means they fully intend to make an effort to keep their fans hooked.
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