"Evan Almighty" budget: $175,000,000 ... WTF?

[E. Honda]

I just discovered that Evan Almighty cost $175,000,000 to make. The same amount they spent on Waterworld, and $25 million short of Titanic. Is this why ticket prices are so high? Is CGI animation that expensive? :confused:

[Brent L]

Well, at least it got great reviews and did great at the box office.

[wilky61]

As of now, Evan Almighty has only grossed (approximately) $98m internationally. Ouch.

[CKMorpheus]

I haven't seen it, and I'm sure there were a bunch of FX shots, but I'd really like to see where most of that budget went.

[Michael Corvin]

It'll make it back on DVD.

[hardercore]

Whoa. I'm perplexed too. How much is Carrell worth, per movie? I'm sure he wasn't that big a star.

[DthRdrX]

The budget still perplexes me as well.

[nateman]

I'm very curious why this movie had such a huge budget as well. Hell Ocean's 13 only had a budget of $85,000,000 & Clooney, Pitt & Damon are pretty much bigger stars than the whole Evan Almighty cast put together. Evan Almighty had John Goodman but he wouldn't be that pricy would he?
I wouldn't think CGI would cost that much. This is one of the few movies that I don't think will make the money back on DVD sales.

[Jason]

Maybe Jim Carrey had a "Play or pay" deal that drove the cost up, but $175 million still seems ridiculously high.

[chris_sc77]

Actually i believe the budget went over $250 million and then you have to add at least $50 million more for advertising/marketing.

[SonOfAStu]

Yeah? Well I heard it cost over $400 million!!!11! Plus catering cost!

[Jericho]

If you didn't know how much this movie cost to make, it actually did okay all things consider. Basically making $100 million domestically (it hasn't been released many places overseas), even though the reviews were mediocre at best and its a sequel to a mediocre film.

Obviously spending that much on a comedy is pretty foolish, and in the end it was doomed by delays and such. But it should end up being a manageable fiasco for Universal.

[movieking]

Can you imagine what it cost to have all of the animal trainers to get all of those animals to line up two by two? And how much they had to pay to replace animals when the higher up the food chain animals would eat the lower down the food chain animals? I am surprised it was only $6.2 billion.

[zombiezilla]

I can't believe that no one's touched upon the fact that it's a comedy based on a Christian biblical story, and much of the country is beginning to lean away from the religious right; and that those who are religious might not want to see Noah depicted in such a way. To say nothing of much of the rest of the world not being Christian, and those folks wouldn't know shit about the story background, as opposed to the Jim Carrey movie, which basically was a story about a man getting deity-like-powers, which is a rather universally understandable thing.

Aside from that, it just might be stupid/unfunny/poorly written. I wouldn't know, I didn't see it; I wouldn't waste my time because (see first paragraph) the subject matter doesn't mean shit to me.

[reubs82]

I can't believe that no one's touched upon the fact that it's a comedy based on a Christian biblical story, and much of the country is beginning to lean away from the religious right; and that those who are religious might not want to see Moses depicted in such a way. To say nothing of much of the rest of the world not being Christian, and those folks wouldn't know shit about the story background, as opposed to the Jim Carrey movie, which basically was a story about a man getting deity-like-powers, which is a rather universally understandable thing.

Aside from that, it just might be stupid/unfunny/poorly written. I wouldn't know, I didn't see it; I wouldn't waste my time because (see first paragraph) the subject matter doesn't mean shit to me.

Never have I hoped in my whole life that a post was sarcastic...because this is one of the more ill-informed posts I've ever read. Before dismantling, please verify that it's a joke...thanks.

[duluthdemon]

Massive delays in filming due to weather. When it $500,000+ per day to shoot, it adds up fast.

[Mr. Cinema]

Knocked Up's huge success and massive profits doesn't make Universal look completely foolish. DVD pretty much guarantees a movie will make some profit for the studio. I think a movie with a Biblical storyline, being released on dvd at Christmas time will likely translate into sales.

[DthRdrX]

Knocked Up's huge success and massive profits doesn't make Universal look completely foolish. DVD pretty much guarantees a movie will make some profit for the studio. I think a movie with a Biblical storyline, being released on dvd at Christmas time will likely translate into sales.

Yea, Knocked Up pretty much picked up the slack for this film anyway to Universal.

[zombiezilla]

Never have I hoped in my whole life that a post was sarcastic...because this is one of the more ill-informed posts I've ever read. Before dismantling, please verify that it's a joke...thanks.


Dismantle away, be my guest. Doesn't make it any less true from the POV of someone who doesn't (like much of the rest of this planet, shown by ticket sales to this pigshit flop) subscribe to these religious beliefs.

[Puzznic]

I think it was just a misunderstanding of what made 40 Year Old Virgin such a hit. It's almost like they thought that if they got the same star and added a bunch of CGI that it would make twice as much as 40 Year Old Virgin

[discostu1337]

Dismantle away, be my guest. Doesn't make it any less true from the POV of someone who doesn't (like much of the rest of this planet, shown by ticket sales to this pigshit flop) subscribe to these religious beliefs.

amen brotha! :)

[Anubis2005X]

Those who aren't religious probably didn't have a whole lot of interest. Those who are religious probably thought it looked sacrilicious. You can't please everybody all the time...

[Sierra Disc]

Those who aren't religious probably didn't have a whole lot of interest. Those who are religious probably thought it looked sacrilicious. You can't please everybody all the time...

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v149/KidGrain/homer.gif" border="0" alt="Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket">
Mmm... sacrilicious....

[reubs82]

Dismantle away, be my guest. Doesn't make it any less true from the POV of someone who doesn't (like much of the rest of this planet, shown by ticket sales to this pigshit flop) subscribe to these religious beliefs.

First of all, if you're going to bash a film for it's "religious" connections, you need to realize that the Flood story isn't a "Christian" story. It's straight out of the book of Genesis, which would make it a Jewish story first and foremost. This, coupled with the other stories of epic destruction by flood, completely negates your simplistic dismissal of the story as "Christian". If anything, the story is universal because of the number of religions that contain some sort of myth. Therefore, the movie's failure has nothing to do with the fact that America is leaning away from the religious right.

Secondly, Moses has nothing...not jack shit...to do with the flood story. That's all that needs to be said about that.

Finally, the reason the damn film costs so much to make (to go along with all of the other crazy reasons...) is that buying the rights to a story in a best-selling book is never going to be cheap, especially when no one really knows who the story originated with.

But nice try.

[SonOfAStu]

First of all, if you're going to bash a film for it's "religious" connections, you need to realize that the Flood story isn't a "Christian" story. It's straight out of the book of Genesis, which would make it a Jewish story first and foremost. This, coupled with the other stories of epic destruction by flood, completely negates your simplistic dismissal of the story as "Christian". If anything, the story is universal because of the number of religions that contain some sort of myth. Therefore, the movie's failure has nothing to do with the fact that America is leaning away from the religious right.

Secondly, Moses has nothing...not jack shit...to do with the flood story. That's all that needs to be said about that.

Finally, the reason the damn film costs so much to make (to go along with all of the other crazy reasons...) is that buying the rights to a story in a best-selling book is never going to be cheap, especially when no one really knows who the story originated with.

But nice try.


:up:

That was almost too easy. And you barely beat me to it. Moses? :lol:

It's extremely silly to believe that this country is leaning away from organized religion. I would agree that the minority of non-religious folk have become much louder, but that's all you're seeing. Of course, I'm sure if them close their eyes real tight and concentrate, they can make themselves believe any kind of nonsense they want. :shrug:

[zombiezilla]

Wow. Moses. Noah. Woah. Can't believe I screwed that up, LOL. And I went to a Catholic school as a kid. Well, that's what I get for reading movie magazines and books about dinosaurs and/or evolution during class. Come to think of it, that's why those other kids ostracized me, too. Ah well, fuck 'em.

Thanks for pointing out my glitch above though; fixed.

[maingon]

for a comedy it was pretty successful, 95 million here, its just the buget was way way out of control. How many comedies make a 175 million? not that many.

[movielib]

A bigger reason for my staying away than the religious reason (I did see Bruce Almighty, just thought it wasn't very good) was the global warming bullshit I heard was thrown in. But that said, given that I didn't care for the first movie and this one got lousy reviews I probably wouldn't have seen it anyway.

[jdslater1]

I kinda understand about the cost due to the CGI but why would "I know pronounce....." cost £85 million!
Has Kevin James joined the £20 million club aswell?

[feenst]

Finally, the reason the damn film costs so much to make (to go along with all of the other crazy reasons...) is that buying the rights to a story in a best-selling book is never going to be cheap, especially when no one really knows who the story originated with.


Who did Universal pay for the rights to this story?

[GoldenJCJ]

God

[Deftones]

I kinda understand about the cost due to the CGI but why would "I know pronounce....." cost £85 million!
Has Kevin James joined the £20 million club aswell?

Well, figure Sandler got his normal $20 million, Biel probably got $5 million as did James. Then, you figure it's a $55 million shoot in NY. Sounds about right.

[MTRodaba2468]

I find it ironic that one of the reasons the budget was so high was due to the large amount of CGI used in the movie, yet the CGI was some of the most obvious and unrealistic CGI I've ever seen in a movie.

[PrincessT]

Who did Universal pay for the rights to this story?
Gilgamesh and Atrahasis

[xage]

Yehey! it reached the $100million barrier this weekend...

Nothing new.. still a bombed at the boxoffice, not even close to meet the budget cost

[sk8r1189]

I just discovered that Evan Almighty cost $175,000,000 to make. The same amount they spent on Waterworld, and $25 million short of Titanic. Is this why ticket prices are so high? Is CGI animation that expensive? :confused:


CGI is actually cheaper then anything. 300 cost roughly 75mil to make - the whole movie was filmed in a warehouse with green paper as the background the whole time.

[ScandalUMD]

This movie was really ill-conceived. "Bruce Almighty" was really too long ago to really be a franchise in its own right, with only Freeman returning from the original cast.

The box office performance of "Passion of the Christ" definitely spurred some people in Hollywood to try to figure out how to score the next religious-theme blockbuster. They thought they could sell Carrell to the mainstream audience and do targetted marketing to religious audiences. Unfortunately, the movie was bad. It was too bland to work as a mainstream comedy and too mainstream to really generate enthusiasm among the religious audiences.

I think with "Knocked Up," the Hollywood execs are warming to the notion of comedy as writer/director driven rather than star driven, and they've given Judd Apatow a blank check. I don't think his crew are the only ones who can do funny, but 11 Apatow'n'friends movies in a year is better than 11 Ben Stiller'n'friends movies.

[RichC2]

The big difference in those is the Apatow n' Friends movies don't revolve the same actor playing a slight variation on the same character.

[Jericho]

But what if the Stiller and friends cross with the Apatow and friends, like with Anchorman?

Two related thoughts:

I thought it was pretty funny a few years when I read an article how every Hollywood comedy seemingly has at least one of the following eight people in it: Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Will Farell, Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Jack Black (this article was right after Anchorman came out, which includes 7 of the eight). It's still amazing how much these eight touch so many comedies.

Second, is Judd Apatow this generation's John Hughes? If so, too bad it took people so long to realize it after his TV shows got cancelled.

[zombiezilla]

...is Judd Apatow this generation's John Hughes?

That's the funniest thing ever associated with Judd Apatow in any way...LOL

And if it's even anywhere remotely near truth..."I weep for the future."

[Heat]

I didn't realize the budget was so high, now I want to see it on DVD.

Is it out yet?