05-15-04
Originally Posted by Mark
So it's not so much that they're cost-effective, it's that they're able to put them out for a price that is still reasonable to think will make a profit. Without CGI, the same films wouldn't be made because their budget would be so high that a profit would be too difficult to achieve.

Is that it?
Yes, that's it.

To make Ben-Hur or Cleopatra today with the same basic methods as used 40 and 50 years ago, it would cost well over $500-million and be uninsurable. By that standard, $180-million is "reasonable"....again, in Hollywood terms anyway. And remember, a 'regular' Hollywood film these days without special effects and minus a superstar is coming in for around $30-million. That's the starting point just to get an A-list production off the ground and into production.

And to bring it back to my original point of this thread, this all has absolutely nothing to do with Braveheart, which was made 'the old-fashioned way' and released five years before Gladiator.
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