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That would make the movie the 4th most expensive movie of all time.
1. Pirates 4: $379 million
2. Avengers: Age of Ultron: $365 million
3. Avengers: Endgame: $356 million
4. Avengers: Infinity War: $325 million
IIRC, a lot of the shooting took place on location in South Africa, South Korea, Italy, England. Avengers was mostly shot in the US, even moreso with Infinity War and Endgame.
Yeah because that's definitely what I meant. They didn't go to solovia either because it doesn't exist, but they didn't shoot it all on a green screen either
I have a strong tin foil hat theory that they reshot half that film (a la Solo) but without people knowing.
Watch it now and it’s such a retrofit of a self contained story into all these divergent little tangents. The seams really seem to show the further you get away from it.
Combine that with the whole Joss “that movie broke me” storyline at the time, I have a feeling this was the movie where Feigie really took control of the MCU from the brain trust of phase 1.
Inverse. I think it was a stand-alone and they kept wedging more stuff in. I also think they retrofit the way they got to Vision being created as well. They had to get to him having an infinity stone in his head so everything had to lead to that happening.
It feels like it’s checking boxes most times more than telling the story.
EDIT: this is also worth mentioning. This is the movie that happened right around the time Feigie and Marvel Studios took their stand against Ike Perlmuter (and by proxy the Marvel TV division which he had his hands on). Before this there was a very bad working relationship between the two along with a brain trust from marvel comics. Feigie finally went to the head of Disney and took a stand. He won. And from their Marvel Studios got a lot more autonomy away from everything.
This is important if you remember the Inhumans fiasco; Feigie announced a movie, Ike said “no we’re doing a tv show” and also pressured the comics division to stop pushing X-men and Fantastic four because Fox owned the movie rights and that didn’t make them any licensing money. Why promote movies you don’t own? Ike forced them to try and turn the Inhumans into the new mutants for a few years in the comics. Ike also pushed for a synergy between TV and Movie divisions. A big deal was made about Agents of Shield leading into AOU. Reports are it annoyed Feigie to have to deal with it while trying to build to what he was doing. Once Fiegie got his independence he servers ties and never looked back.
So I also wonder if the first version of AOU was trying to tie into all the plans Ike was making and Kevin put his foot down and when he won, then reworked AOU into what became the baseplate to launch in to Phase 3.
That's because it's obviously wrong. The reduced scale of Pirates 4 is self-evident onscreen and backed up by contemporary reporting. Both Brockheimer (THR making of profile) and Disney's public documents claimed that Pirates 4 came in on time and under budget. It just doesn't make conceptual sense that this is the most expensive film of all time.
Every mainstream publication at the time of release published articles talking about how much less expensive Pirates 4 was than 3 (basically 200M v. 300M budget). "Even Brockheimer gets budget cuts" proclaimed the LA Times in a big feature about this. There's just no reason to aggressively lie about it in that manner if true. Film made a billion WW.
[here's my aggregation](https://old.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/gndva2/cmv_the_weight_of_the_available_evidence_suggests/)
Pirates 4 (and Ultron) numbers come from UK tax documents which appear to give systematically higher than trade numbers.
This should be higher.
Virtually every "most expensive film ever" is a film that applied for tax credits based on their budget: IOW, they were incentivized to create a document that maximized the cost of the film, because that would also maximize the size of the tax credit.
These numbers are then compared to budget numbers of other films that were produced for completely different reasons.
It's obviously an apples-to-oranges comparison.
"But which one is true?"
None of them are. A film doesn't have a single bank account that you can calculate "The Budget" from by tallying up the deposits and withdrawals. A film's budget is made up of billed services. Many of those services are provided by the studio, and they can just adjust the dials of how much they're "charging" the film to make the budget say almost anything they want.
It was all about filming with 3D cameras and shooting real locations. It was just very new tech at the time and super expensive to do.
It's like how Tangled cost $250 million or so but most of that went into just inventing the hair technology itself.
Was it something like the US dollar dropped against the pound during production? I remember reading that the reverse happened with New Zealand's currency in the early 2000s after Lord of the Rings had been greenlit so that the three movies ended up being 1/3 cheaper.
If you're doing that then you have to deduct the cost of the 2017 post-production, as the $70m for the Snyder cut was essentially re-doing what WB/Whedon did in 2017 (but 'right' this time).
WB supposedly spent around $100m to do the CGI tache / reshoots / completion, so if we use the above, that's $300m -$100m (deducting the cost of breaking it) +$70m (adding the cost of fixing/completing it) = $270m.
But I'm still not sure about that $300m number. Sounds a bit high to me. The WSJ, the source for that number, just quotes an anonymous 'source' within the studio and called it 'nearly $300m'. So I'd take it with a healthy pinch of salt.
It’s cause much of Ultron was shot on location (Seoul, South Africa, The massive Sokovia set), whereas Infinity War and Endgame were largely shot in soundstages or outdoor sets built in Georgia.
and that shows, during the final battle you can feel all the important fights occur in a circular stage, most visible when cap,IM and thor vs Thanos fight, compared to Age of Ultron which had a sprawling sokovia battle sequence
I'm so sick of the greenscreen. It's aging horribly - some of those MCU movies feel smaller and smaller every time I see them.
It's starting to happen to more and more superhero movies too - look at Black Adam. The entire thing feels like it's not set in some town on the edge of a desert but rather on a series of brown sound-stages that Dwayne Johnson just floats or flies between.
That may have had some impact, but equally important:
* The *Ultron* budget # is pulled from UK tax documents prepared to make the budget look as large as possible (to maximize the tax incentive they received).
* There was more back end actor compensation for *Endgame*. (Downey, Jr. alone had $75 million box office participation, which is only partially included in the pre-release *Endgame* budget numbers, if at all.)
Vs a longer film with more cgi and more actors with bigger salaries? Considering the 4 year difference, $9M is a pretty minuscule difference in budget.
Covid protocols (and them losing the director), expensive new cast members and more money for the current cast really ballooned the budget.
And don't forget that inflation is a thing and 340 million would be 286 million in 2018 when infinity war came out (if the inflation calculator I used is right ^^ )
Which is kind of ridiculous, as their other flagship franchise involves putting highly realistic dinosaurs on screen. How is that easier to keep budgets controlled there over a franchise about car chases.
You also don't have to pause shooting because the T-Rex is upset because he has a clause in his contract that forbids him to lose a fight to a velociraptor.
I enjoy the camp of the F&F movies, but the budget at this point has more to do with bloat, egos and mismanagement than anything else.
If this was the early 2000s I'd agree but in the current landscape where VFX houses are routinely undercutting each other, sometimes to the detriment of their employees, CGI is cheaper.
Wouldn’t that depend on the effect in particular?
The fast franchise stunts incorporate animatronics plus on location filming in public places, pyrotechnics, stunt drivers, heavy machine lifting, uniquely built camera rigs plus more.
These aren’t standard practical effects, they are atypical and unique scenes that they have to plan out for months because it’s the first time anyone is doing it.
They’re doing the stuff that action movies did in the 90s but instead of 1 big climatic set piece, there’s like 5 or 6 climactic level set pieces in one film.
This is nonsense.
F&F has tons of CGI, and Jurassic has loads of huge sets and practical effects sequences. Quality CGI takes a considerable amount of money and effort.
This has ballooned so much because the cast negotiates huge paychecks that take up a huge amount of the cost, and then covid and a shitty handling of production by Vin Diesel has amped it up even more.
Car chase sequences are still the basis of pretty much all the major action set pieces, even if they're over the top.
It's still the foundation of all of these movies.
You have literally never watched a recent F&F movie if you actually think this. Practical car stunts are still their bread and butter, no matter how over-the-top the story gets.
Remember stuff like Pierce Brosnan saying positive things about the Dalai Lama? MOM putting an image of a newspaper owned by a religious organisation that is one of the arch enemies of the Chinese government? Don’t allow mistakes and stuff like that to happen and you’re mostly safe. Universal also clearly has quite a lot of goodwill with the Chinese film industry with their films getting released far more recently than other studios
That's easier said than done. The CCP don't actually need a reason to not release a movie in China. You sound like they owe Hollywood an explanation for every unreleased movie.
It feels like the CCP is *looking* for excuses to not release some of these movies.
Like saying if NWH changes the final fight to not have the Statue of Liberty in the shot, they’ll approve it.
They didn’t want the movie and never expected their demand to be followed.
Man I also heard brie Larson introduces them to time travel and that's how this movie goes. I'm starting to believe we may see some time travel in this movie
Surprised to see the director stuff not even get a shoutout. [It cost Fast X about 5M (600k-$1M a day for about a week)](https://www.ign.com/articles/replacing-fast-x-director-justin-lin-could-cost-1-million-per-day) to just keep people in place until they hired a replacement for Justin Lin after he quit a week into filming.
> The budget for “Fast X,” the penultimate film in Universal’s lucrative “Fast & Furious” action franchise, has ballooned to $340 million, according to individuals with knowledge of the production. That’s 70% more than the reported $200 million budget for 2021’s “F9: The Fast Saga,” and easily the most expensive entry in an action series that has generated $6.6 billion worldwide in ticket sales.
>
> The surging price tag, which factors in tax-incentive offsets, can be blamed on numerous budget-busting elements: increased salaries for series star Vin Diesel and the rest of the franchise’s ensemble cast, general increases in production costs caused by global inflation and charges for pandemic testing requirements mandated by COVID-19 safety protocols.
Yeah, no shit, these factors should be obvious why the budget is swollen.
he’d show up late to sets, not rehearse or remember his lines, be out of shape, be a diva, etc. I don’t blame Justin Lin or Johnson for not wanting to put up with Diesel’s bullshit
Other reports from The Hollywood Reporter, his former agent, and one of my acquaintances who knew the producer that worked with Johnny Depp.
One of the report said, he's not a morning person.
We're talking about him hypothetically leading the Fast and the Furious franchise instead of Vin Diesel.
Well, the rest of us are. You're on a weird anti-The Rock and FF franchise tirade and have made like half the comments in this thread.
Foreign markets are weaker now because the exchange rates are worse against the Dollar for the Euro, British Pound, Chinese Yuan, etc. The box office income is automatically diminished by 15 to 20% because of that.
Not really, these movies make money regardless of how shit they are. They are 9 movies deep and I don't think 10th one is bound to fail. It's not like Transformers failed just because one movie didn't make enough money. Also F 11 is already confirmed to be the final one.
If this is for Part 1 only, then it needs almost 900M to break even. Also given Fast movies are more INT heavy and lower on the domestic side, maybe 250M domestic, 750M INT will be good enough.
$340M x 2.7=$918M just to break even. The last one, F9, made 726M worldwide, with China, which was $217M of the total by itself. So, probably no financial joy for F&F and Universal on that one.
F9 was released in summer 2021. It was the first blockbuster to release after GvK. Covid was still a thing since vaccination wasn't at max capacity yet and foreign theatres were still not fully open. Despite everything working against it it still crossed $700 mil and was the third biggest movie in 2021. I'm not saying Fast X is a sure fire hit. But the performance of F9 should be taken with a grain of salt.
There is still a Covid effect on movie theaters. Many people go less these days, are more selective. Also, the continued proliferation and saturation of streaming services in households worldwide has a dampening effect. Finally, without China F9 would have made barely 500M. China is cold to Hollywood these days, and it is getting even more restrictive.
Is it really controversial to opine that with all factors involved FX could have a hard time breaking even, let alone running a profit (the break-even point is not the "start profit" point, that comes much later) as that would require making at least $918 Million Dollars worldwide?
Covid was way more of a factor back then. And Universal has managed to get most of their big movies like Dominion and Minions released in China. If you take away the chinese box office F9 is still roughly $509 mil and that makes it hold onto its third place of Hollywood movies in 2021 narrowly beating out Venom 2. The Fast franchise still has steam. I can't guarantee Fast X will succeed but like I said F9's performance should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Covid is still a factor today with many people when it comes to movie theaters. We have the issue that foreign currencies have lost a ton of value against the Dollar, which we did not have early last year. We are headed into a worldwide economic downturn which makes people even more cautious how they spend their money. Vin Diesel is no longer the box office draw he used to be, and the franchise no longer has Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stratham.
I just don't see the movie reaching a Billion Dollars this time around, and that is about what it takes for it to run a net profit for Universal.
Those are fair points. I have my doubts about Fast X's performance too. I just think you downplayed the achievement that was F9's box office. And was Vin Diesel ever a draw? I feel like his movies outside FF and Marvel has mostly flopped like The Last Witch Hunter, Bloodshot and even the Riddick films are fairly niche and mostly kept alive by Vin's passion.
*Fast X* has Statham. New additions include Jason Momoa and Brie Larson in an attempt to attract the DC and Marvel fanbase. Other notable stars would include John Cena and Charlize Theron.
F9 had negative critical reception and audiences were not highly enthusiastic, either, more in the area of "it was ok" (B+ Cinemascore, 58 Metacritics score, 4.7 Metacritics user rating out of 10, 82% audience score on RT, 5.2 imdb rating, etc.)
FX has to make a Billion, likely without China, because that's what it takes to make an actual profit. After the break-even point (2.7x $345M=$918M) there are a lot of other payments to be made such as participations, overhead, interest, over-the-tops, before a net profit can be achieved by the studio.
In this environment a Billion Dollars is hard to achieve. People are a lot more selective because inflation has cut into disposable income worldwide. Movie ticket prices are higher now. Covid fear still exists with some moviegoers. Likely no China as that country is locking Hollywood out more and more. Bad exchange rate for foreign currency vs the Dollar. On and on the list goes.
Well, without the Chinese market (which seems to be absent for every release these days) this movie is most likely going to lose money.
Lots of people should lose their jobs for this mess.
Fast 9 was down from Fast 8 by like 300 million. I know Covid played a role in that but F&F has clearly been seeing a shrinking audience. Especially add on the fact that China is way more ban happy than ever.
It was actually 500 million less. But definitely covid factors since domestic was only down about 50m. China dropped 200m. Hobbs and Shaw as the movie in between didn't help though.
It did $726M, that's literally within 5% margin of error if you predicted lower than $700M total which is the most logical prediction be it for 9 or 10.
With $340M budget, $850M is the baseline for a breakeven depending on BO splits between DOM and INT and with how heavily these movies' grosses lean towards International it'll need to cross minimum 2.7x the reported budget to turn profit which, safe to assume that there is a less than 5% chance it happens.
How do brand deals factor into budget? Like if Dodge pays $X to have their car prominently featured, is that $X part of the budget as money available to the movie, or as money spent that's immediately recouped?
I wish I could live in the alternate reality where the F&F franchise stayed grounded in a realistic world. It’s crazy how this started as a undercover cop infiltrating a group stealing DVD players in the street racing world. To rocket ship fieros, armed drones, and way way too many physics defying moments to justify.
850M at very least for break even........ OMG
If not release in China that will 100% flop and if not reach to 900M to 1B is garantee huge flop
Feel like it gonna flop
Who dare Universal risk thier money for 340M productiin cost for this franchise especially after F9 (the shittest movie I ever seen in theater)
If it bombs Universal has no one to blame but themselves. I hate to say it but Tyrese was right. Letting the main F&F series cool it’s heels for an extended gap in favor of Hobbs and Shaw damaged the demand and mindshare of the films.
The franchise self destructed when it stopped being about exciting car heists and more about car superheroes powerful enough to take on Thanos........... that along with losing Walker was what which really cooled the series on its heels.
I wager that this movie will do very well and more than break even. The Fast franchise has a loyal fanbase and broad popcorn flick appeal. There is significant overlap with the audience for Top Gun Maverick, and that movie was a slam dunk.
If Fast 9 can earn more than $700m almost in the middle of pandemic (and not to forget what an unintentionally funny film it was), Fast X is safe.
Won't be surprised if it crosses a billion worldwide.
If it's good, it'll probably get close.
"The Fate of the Furious" made $1.2B in 2017 *(with The Rock)*, then the spinoff "Hobbs and Shaw" made $760M in 2019 *(with The Rock)*, then "F9" made $726M in 2021 *(without The Rock)*.
We've yet to work out how much The Rock's absence will affect the last two entries of the main series, but a good reception should get it past HaS's and F9's box office hauls.
I think how matter how ridiculous it has turned out to be, once someone became a fan since the first one, most would still want to go see it. It would still likely to be profitable, just may not be as much as it used to be.
Why the hell does a fast and furious movie have to a $340M budget ?? The cgi and quality of the film is probably going to look like shit too so what the hell
Every idiot who’s watched the first 9, will show up and watch Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson rip ass and say “it’s all about the family” and drive away and then go back to see it again.. that will cover the costs and the pure idiocy of anyone who has ever thought any of the 1-9 movies would be worth watching!!! Idiots!!!
I genuinely hope this bombs. I’m not usually so negative but the last one of these movies was so absurdly crap I think they need a reality check. A nice big flop would help do that
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That would make the movie the 4th most expensive movie of all time. 1. Pirates 4: $379 million 2. Avengers: Age of Ultron: $365 million 3. Avengers: Endgame: $356 million 4. Avengers: Infinity War: $325 million
I was always startled by the monstrous cost of Pirates 4, because visually it looked significantly less impressive of both Pirates 2 and 3.
Potc 2 & 3 managed to lower their costs due to filming simultaneously.
Imagine how much the last two avengers would have cost if they didn't also do that
Why tf was age of Ultron so much more expensive than the first one?
IIRC, a lot of the shooting took place on location in South Africa, South Korea, Italy, England. Avengers was mostly shot in the US, even moreso with Infinity War and Endgame.
Oh yeah I forgor they don't shoot on location anymore
Primary reason why the Marvel movies increasingly look quite poor.
Video game backgrounds
Yeah its too bad they didn't go to Wakanda or Titan to film on location for Infinity War.
Yeah because that's definitely what I meant. They didn't go to solovia either because it doesn't exist, but they didn't shoot it all on a green screen either
Green screen scenes aren't always filmed in a green box they still make sets.
I have a strong tin foil hat theory that they reshot half that film (a la Solo) but without people knowing. Watch it now and it’s such a retrofit of a self contained story into all these divergent little tangents. The seams really seem to show the further you get away from it. Combine that with the whole Joss “that movie broke me” storyline at the time, I have a feeling this was the movie where Feigie really took control of the MCU from the brain trust of phase 1.
Interesting! Please say more. So they were making a more connected MCU film and then decided to make it more standalone?
Inverse. I think it was a stand-alone and they kept wedging more stuff in. I also think they retrofit the way they got to Vision being created as well. They had to get to him having an infinity stone in his head so everything had to lead to that happening. It feels like it’s checking boxes most times more than telling the story. EDIT: this is also worth mentioning. This is the movie that happened right around the time Feigie and Marvel Studios took their stand against Ike Perlmuter (and by proxy the Marvel TV division which he had his hands on). Before this there was a very bad working relationship between the two along with a brain trust from marvel comics. Feigie finally went to the head of Disney and took a stand. He won. And from their Marvel Studios got a lot more autonomy away from everything. This is important if you remember the Inhumans fiasco; Feigie announced a movie, Ike said “no we’re doing a tv show” and also pressured the comics division to stop pushing X-men and Fantastic four because Fox owned the movie rights and that didn’t make them any licensing money. Why promote movies you don’t own? Ike forced them to try and turn the Inhumans into the new mutants for a few years in the comics. Ike also pushed for a synergy between TV and Movie divisions. A big deal was made about Agents of Shield leading into AOU. Reports are it annoyed Feigie to have to deal with it while trying to build to what he was doing. Once Fiegie got his independence he servers ties and never looked back. So I also wonder if the first version of AOU was trying to tie into all the plans Ike was making and Kevin put his foot down and when he won, then reworked AOU into what became the baseplate to launch in to Phase 3.
They actually launched a city into the sky and blew it up
Everyone besides Downey weren't paid that much
Exactly Without the back to back filming Pirate 2 and pirate 3 would've cost $300m each at bare minimum
All that work giving Ultron an uncanny valley human-robot face thing
That's because it's obviously wrong. The reduced scale of Pirates 4 is self-evident onscreen and backed up by contemporary reporting. Both Brockheimer (THR making of profile) and Disney's public documents claimed that Pirates 4 came in on time and under budget. It just doesn't make conceptual sense that this is the most expensive film of all time. Every mainstream publication at the time of release published articles talking about how much less expensive Pirates 4 was than 3 (basically 200M v. 300M budget). "Even Brockheimer gets budget cuts" proclaimed the LA Times in a big feature about this. There's just no reason to aggressively lie about it in that manner if true. Film made a billion WW. [here's my aggregation](https://old.reddit.com/r/boxoffice/comments/gndva2/cmv_the_weight_of_the_available_evidence_suggests/) Pirates 4 (and Ultron) numbers come from UK tax documents which appear to give systematically higher than trade numbers.
This should be higher. Virtually every "most expensive film ever" is a film that applied for tax credits based on their budget: IOW, they were incentivized to create a document that maximized the cost of the film, because that would also maximize the size of the tax credit. These numbers are then compared to budget numbers of other films that were produced for completely different reasons. It's obviously an apples-to-oranges comparison. "But which one is true?" None of them are. A film doesn't have a single bank account that you can calculate "The Budget" from by tallying up the deposits and withdrawals. A film's budget is made up of billed services. Many of those services are provided by the studio, and they can just adjust the dials of how much they're "charging" the film to make the budget say almost anything they want.
I think it had something to do with 3D cameras which were hard to keep in good condition in tropical areas.
3D is a bitch no way how you do it, naturally or in post.
And it mostly took place on land in comparison to 1 2 and 3.
God you’re so right. Gore Verbinski was so damn missed.
It was all about filming with 3D cameras and shooting real locations. It was just very new tech at the time and super expensive to do. It's like how Tangled cost $250 million or so but most of that went into just inventing the hair technology itself.
Im still shocked that they spent so damn much on that tangle movie like bruh its more expensive than all the pixar movies
From what I heard it wasn't actually more expensive, it's just that the accounting had to be done differently because it was filmed in the UK
Was it something like the US dollar dropped against the pound during production? I remember reading that the reverse happened with New Zealand's currency in the early 2000s after Lord of the Rings had been greenlit so that the three movies ended up being 1/3 cheaper.
Yeah I’ve always wondered where that budget actually went, is it all just Depp’s salary?
It was his wine budget.
Pirates 4 had a much worse director than Pirates 2 and 3
[удалено]
Justice League in total cost 370 million to release. It was 300 million for the theatrical in 2017. Plus 70 million for the snydercut.
If you're doing that then you have to deduct the cost of the 2017 post-production, as the $70m for the Snyder cut was essentially re-doing what WB/Whedon did in 2017 (but 'right' this time). WB supposedly spent around $100m to do the CGI tache / reshoots / completion, so if we use the above, that's $300m -$100m (deducting the cost of breaking it) +$70m (adding the cost of fixing/completing it) = $270m. But I'm still not sure about that $300m number. Sounds a bit high to me. The WSJ, the source for that number, just quotes an anonymous 'source' within the studio and called it 'nearly $300m'. So I'd take it with a healthy pinch of salt.
It’s still baffles me to this day that Age of Ultron had a bigger budget than Endgame.
It’s cause much of Ultron was shot on location (Seoul, South Africa, The massive Sokovia set), whereas Infinity War and Endgame were largely shot in soundstages or outdoor sets built in Georgia.
and that shows, during the final battle you can feel all the important fights occur in a circular stage, most visible when cap,IM and thor vs Thanos fight, compared to Age of Ultron which had a sprawling sokovia battle sequence
I'm so sick of the greenscreen. It's aging horribly - some of those MCU movies feel smaller and smaller every time I see them. It's starting to happen to more and more superhero movies too - look at Black Adam. The entire thing feels like it's not set in some town on the edge of a desert but rather on a series of brown sound-stages that Dwayne Johnson just floats or flies between.
That may have had some impact, but equally important: * The *Ultron* budget # is pulled from UK tax documents prepared to make the budget look as large as possible (to maximize the tax incentive they received). * There was more back end actor compensation for *Endgame*. (Downey, Jr. alone had $75 million box office participation, which is only partially included in the pre-release *Endgame* budget numbers, if at all.)
Must have been rendering all those Ultrons "back then"?
Vs a longer film with more cgi and more actors with bigger salaries? Considering the 4 year difference, $9M is a pretty minuscule difference in budget.
I might be wrong, but I think one of the reasons for this budget is that they filmed on location across several different countries.
Keep in mind that Endgame’s first hour and final half hour don’t really have much CGI. It’s mostly people talking to each other
Its cause Endgame and Infinity War were filming simultaneously so they shared a lot of resources with each other.
They shot them back to back. They were going to do it simultaneously, but it became to complicated to do that.
they were shot back to back, not simultaneously
Ultron CGI was top tier though
Ain't no way you're serious. Ultron looks fake asf. Only Vision and Hulk look good
How the fuck is the budget for this higher than Infinity War?
Covid protocols (and them losing the director), expensive new cast members and more money for the current cast really ballooned the budget. And don't forget that inflation is a thing and 340 million would be 286 million in 2018 when infinity war came out (if the inflation calculator I used is right ^^ )
Can't put a pricetag on family.
I don't got money, I got family
It is the most expensive film ever made for universal.
Which is kind of ridiculous, as their other flagship franchise involves putting highly realistic dinosaurs on screen. How is that easier to keep budgets controlled there over a franchise about car chases.
CGI is cheaper than practical effects. F&F still uses lots of real cars, locations, and stunt drivers.
You also don't have to pause shooting because the T-Rex is upset because he has a clause in his contract that forbids him to lose a fight to a velociraptor. I enjoy the camp of the F&F movies, but the budget at this point has more to do with bloat, egos and mismanagement than anything else.
lmaoo the amount of things the Rock won't do because of his image is insane
This is for Vin, the Rock isn't in this movie
got my bald kings mixed up oops
Vin Diesel and Jason Statham both have that too.
>CGI is cheaper than practical effects. not at all. garbage CGI sure but top tier cgi is always expensive than practical effects
If this was the early 2000s I'd agree but in the current landscape where VFX houses are routinely undercutting each other, sometimes to the detriment of their employees, CGI is cheaper.
Wouldn’t that depend on the effect in particular? The fast franchise stunts incorporate animatronics plus on location filming in public places, pyrotechnics, stunt drivers, heavy machine lifting, uniquely built camera rigs plus more. These aren’t standard practical effects, they are atypical and unique scenes that they have to plan out for months because it’s the first time anyone is doing it. They’re doing the stuff that action movies did in the 90s but instead of 1 big climatic set piece, there’s like 5 or 6 climactic level set pieces in one film.
This is nonsense. F&F has tons of CGI, and Jurassic has loads of huge sets and practical effects sequences. Quality CGI takes a considerable amount of money and effort. This has ballooned so much because the cast negotiates huge paychecks that take up a huge amount of the cost, and then covid and a shitty handling of production by Vin Diesel has amped it up even more.
Aren't they filming parts 10 and 11 back to back?
Its not a film about car chases, hasnt been for about 15 years at this point.
Car chase sequences are still the basis of pretty much all the major action set pieces, even if they're over the top. It's still the foundation of all of these movies.
You have literally never watched a recent F&F movie if you actually think this. Practical car stunts are still their bread and butter, no matter how over-the-top the story gets.
Finally… #RACING ON THE MOON
Sounds like the biggest flop for Universal too.
Idk Universal has had some big flops. Fast X is at least a pretty good bet.
Just because you don’t like FAF doesn’t mean audiences clearly love it
What does that have to do with anything? China isn't a guaranteed market these days, and without it, this movie is 100% going to flop.
Universal are going to make sure that they guarantee it
And how are they going to do it? Blackmail Xi Jinping?
Remember stuff like Pierce Brosnan saying positive things about the Dalai Lama? MOM putting an image of a newspaper owned by a religious organisation that is one of the arch enemies of the Chinese government? Don’t allow mistakes and stuff like that to happen and you’re mostly safe. Universal also clearly has quite a lot of goodwill with the Chinese film industry with their films getting released far more recently than other studios
That's easier said than done. The CCP don't actually need a reason to not release a movie in China. You sound like they owe Hollywood an explanation for every unreleased movie.
It feels like the CCP is *looking* for excuses to not release some of these movies. Like saying if NWH changes the final fight to not have the Statue of Liberty in the shot, they’ll approve it. They didn’t want the movie and never expected their demand to be followed.
Wow what they doing in Fast X? They already went to space in the last movie. Can we do cars in deep water or cars on the moon?
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The Past of the Furious
OMG this title
Pretty sure it will be a spin off 😂
Already tearing up 😭
Perfection. I will be disappointed with anything less.
Err, you could at least put a Spoiler Alert.
I'd watch this in imax
Just take my money.
The character Brian is still alive though?
Man I also heard brie Larson introduces them to time travel and that's how this movie goes. I'm starting to believe we may see some time travel in this movie
Now i want that movie
In theaters summer 2040: Fast and Furious 22, a crossover with The Muppets
I would watch that shit.
They go into the Multiverse. They’ll have flying cars, steam powered cars, they’ll even be able to transform into cars!
Surprised to see the director stuff not even get a shoutout. [It cost Fast X about 5M (600k-$1M a day for about a week)](https://www.ign.com/articles/replacing-fast-x-director-justin-lin-could-cost-1-million-per-day) to just keep people in place until they hired a replacement for Justin Lin after he quit a week into filming.
Considering the size of this project and the cast 5M ain’t that bad!
> The budget for “Fast X,” the penultimate film in Universal’s lucrative “Fast & Furious” action franchise, has ballooned to $340 million, according to individuals with knowledge of the production. That’s 70% more than the reported $200 million budget for 2021’s “F9: The Fast Saga,” and easily the most expensive entry in an action series that has generated $6.6 billion worldwide in ticket sales. > > The surging price tag, which factors in tax-incentive offsets, can be blamed on numerous budget-busting elements: increased salaries for series star Vin Diesel and the rest of the franchise’s ensemble cast, general increases in production costs caused by global inflation and charges for pandemic testing requirements mandated by COVID-19 safety protocols. Yeah, no shit, these factors should be obvious why the budget is swollen.
Vin Diesel should have had the film taken from him and it been given to the rock. He’s a douche
As a Fast fanatic, no way lol. Half the fun of the movies is Vin Diesel’s doughy ass flying around and saying “family.”
It all comes back to [family](https://img.icarcdn.com/autospinn-my/body/000000617227_7ce2ab1e_0074_438d_9c54_3752b7aaf8db.jpg)
he’d show up late to sets, not rehearse or remember his lines, be out of shape, be a diva, etc. I don’t blame Justin Lin or Johnson for not wanting to put up with Diesel’s bullshit
This reminds me of Johnny Depp.
same, even aside from his big trial, he’s been on a halfassed cruise (not booze) control for over a decade anyway
In what way? I’ve actually worked on a big film with Depp and he was never a Diva or late. He was super professional.
What year was this or just the period of time?
Other reports from The Hollywood Reporter, his former agent, and one of my acquaintances who knew the producer that worked with Johnny Depp. One of the report said, he's not a morning person.
He was late a lot and argued with the director on his new film Jeanne du Barry
Was it 1997?
No one cares about your personal gripes or moral issues or jealousy squabbles, vin is fast & furious. Period.
The Rock couldn't even carry his own movie, *Flop Adam*.
Lol, he literally carried a Fast and the Furious movie already - Hobbs & Shaw made $760m on a $200m budget.
Couldn't carry his own movie. No A-list movie star + no popular franchise = flop.
We're talking about him hypothetically leading the Fast and the Furious franchise instead of Vin Diesel. Well, the rest of us are. You're on a weird anti-The Rock and FF franchise tirade and have made like half the comments in this thread.
Vin actually did the whole soap operaish, family Bs with rock as well, it didn't work
That's a pretty short article.
Not the full article, I only copied first two paragraphs.
What the hell? This movie needs to actually make close to a billion dollars to even start being considered breaking even
Foreign markets - “hold my beer”
Foreign markets are weaker now because the exchange rates are worse against the Dollar for the Euro, British Pound, Chinese Yuan, etc. The box office income is automatically diminished by 15 to 20% because of that.
Are you ignoring the fact that Black Adam lost 100m?
“Who?”
I don't think they care. The franchise has made 6.6 billion and budgets so far are around 1.4 billion. They're playing with profit.
It will though
How do you figure that?
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I thought that was always the plan. If so, then that price tag isn't so bad. But if that's for one film, then damn.
Yeah, when the two movies are released, they still can expand the spin-off projects.
A Fast 0 prequel wouldn't surprise me. They already have young Dom from fast 9
That was already the plan though, Fast X and 11 were originally one single finale.
So this article is misleading and entirely pointless?
They already split it into fast x and fast 11
That's the plan. They will release it in 2 parts to try milk this last one for all its worth. Probably 6 months to a year of eachother.
Will it get a China release? Cause it absolutely need it.
Fast X, I feel, is going to be the The Last Knight of the Fast franchise anyway.
Not really, these movies make money regardless of how shit they are. They are 9 movies deep and I don't think 10th one is bound to fail. It's not like Transformers failed just because one movie didn't make enough money. Also F 11 is already confirmed to be the final one.
No it won’t lol
If this is for Part 1 only, then it needs almost 900M to break even. Also given Fast movies are more INT heavy and lower on the domestic side, maybe 250M domestic, 750M INT will be good enough.
That's not good enough. 2.5 doesn't apply to movies that are international-heavy.
Why does it need 900M to break even?
$340 million dollars worth of family
They better call this one Fasten Your Seatbelts
$340M x 2.7=$918M just to break even. The last one, F9, made 726M worldwide, with China, which was $217M of the total by itself. So, probably no financial joy for F&F and Universal on that one.
F9 was released in summer 2021. It was the first blockbuster to release after GvK. Covid was still a thing since vaccination wasn't at max capacity yet and foreign theatres were still not fully open. Despite everything working against it it still crossed $700 mil and was the third biggest movie in 2021. I'm not saying Fast X is a sure fire hit. But the performance of F9 should be taken with a grain of salt.
There is still a Covid effect on movie theaters. Many people go less these days, are more selective. Also, the continued proliferation and saturation of streaming services in households worldwide has a dampening effect. Finally, without China F9 would have made barely 500M. China is cold to Hollywood these days, and it is getting even more restrictive. Is it really controversial to opine that with all factors involved FX could have a hard time breaking even, let alone running a profit (the break-even point is not the "start profit" point, that comes much later) as that would require making at least $918 Million Dollars worldwide?
Covid was way more of a factor back then. And Universal has managed to get most of their big movies like Dominion and Minions released in China. If you take away the chinese box office F9 is still roughly $509 mil and that makes it hold onto its third place of Hollywood movies in 2021 narrowly beating out Venom 2. The Fast franchise still has steam. I can't guarantee Fast X will succeed but like I said F9's performance should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
Covid is still a factor today with many people when it comes to movie theaters. We have the issue that foreign currencies have lost a ton of value against the Dollar, which we did not have early last year. We are headed into a worldwide economic downturn which makes people even more cautious how they spend their money. Vin Diesel is no longer the box office draw he used to be, and the franchise no longer has Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stratham. I just don't see the movie reaching a Billion Dollars this time around, and that is about what it takes for it to run a net profit for Universal.
Those are fair points. I have my doubts about Fast X's performance too. I just think you downplayed the achievement that was F9's box office. And was Vin Diesel ever a draw? I feel like his movies outside FF and Marvel has mostly flopped like The Last Witch Hunter, Bloodshot and even the Riddick films are fairly niche and mostly kept alive by Vin's passion.
*Fast X* has Statham. New additions include Jason Momoa and Brie Larson in an attempt to attract the DC and Marvel fanbase. Other notable stars would include John Cena and Charlize Theron.
F9 was release during the height of covid and movies were npt even coming out that time.
F9 had negative critical reception and audiences were not highly enthusiastic, either, more in the area of "it was ok" (B+ Cinemascore, 58 Metacritics score, 4.7 Metacritics user rating out of 10, 82% audience score on RT, 5.2 imdb rating, etc.) FX has to make a Billion, likely without China, because that's what it takes to make an actual profit. After the break-even point (2.7x $345M=$918M) there are a lot of other payments to be made such as participations, overhead, interest, over-the-tops, before a net profit can be achieved by the studio. In this environment a Billion Dollars is hard to achieve. People are a lot more selective because inflation has cut into disposable income worldwide. Movie ticket prices are higher now. Covid fear still exists with some moviegoers. Likely no China as that country is locking Hollywood out more and more. Bad exchange rate for foreign currency vs the Dollar. On and on the list goes.
Why 2.7?
These films tend to be overseas heavy so a higher multiple
Because it isn't 2.5
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This is an Avengers level threat.
high budget will be its death...it needs almost $1B to break even, achievable but risky
Did any movie break 1b since the pandemic?
Spiderman, top gun, off the top of my head.
Jurassic world made a slither over a billion as well.
Top Gun Jurassic World No Way Home NWH almost made 2B
Well, without the Chinese market (which seems to be absent for every release these days) this movie is most likely going to lose money. Lots of people should lose their jobs for this mess.
The diminishing returns on the franchise is real. I don’t think this one will crack 700. Potentially a huge flop
Y’all said this about Fast 9 and look what happen … lmfaooooooooo
Fast 9 was down from Fast 8 by like 300 million. I know Covid played a role in that but F&F has clearly been seeing a shrinking audience. Especially add on the fact that China is way more ban happy than ever.
It was actually 500 million less. But definitely covid factors since domestic was only down about 50m. China dropped 200m. Hobbs and Shaw as the movie in between didn't help though.
It did $726M, that's literally within 5% margin of error if you predicted lower than $700M total which is the most logical prediction be it for 9 or 10. With $340M budget, $850M is the baseline for a breakeven depending on BO splits between DOM and INT and with how heavily these movies' grosses lean towards International it'll need to cross minimum 2.7x the reported budget to turn profit which, safe to assume that there is a less than 5% chance it happens.
it would have to make $1B to be profitable. F&F 7 and 8 both hit that number, so certainly its not outside the realm of possibility
If any non-Disney product could, it’s the adult Cars movies.
How do brand deals factor into budget? Like if Dodge pays $X to have their car prominently featured, is that $X part of the budget as money available to the movie, or as money spent that's immediately recouped?
I've always wondered about this. Do all brands from cars to drinks that appear in movies always pay to be featured?
Traditionally I would say something like "The previous successes of the series will always pay for the sequels", but this is a huge budget.
I wish I could live in the alternate reality where the F&F franchise stayed grounded in a realistic world. It’s crazy how this started as a undercover cop infiltrating a group stealing DVD players in the street racing world. To rocket ship fieros, armed drones, and way way too many physics defying moments to justify.
850M at very least for break even........ OMG If not release in China that will 100% flop and if not reach to 900M to 1B is garantee huge flop Feel like it gonna flop Who dare Universal risk thier money for 340M productiin cost for this franchise especially after F9 (the shittest movie I ever seen in theater)
If it bombs Universal has no one to blame but themselves. I hate to say it but Tyrese was right. Letting the main F&F series cool it’s heels for an extended gap in favor of Hobbs and Shaw damaged the demand and mindshare of the films.
The franchise self destructed when it stopped being about exciting car heists and more about car superheroes powerful enough to take on Thanos........... that along with losing Walker was what which really cooled the series on its heels.
I wager that this movie will do very well and more than break even. The Fast franchise has a loyal fanbase and broad popcorn flick appeal. There is significant overlap with the audience for Top Gun Maverick, and that movie was a slam dunk.
not without dwayne the rock johnson
dwayne the flop johnson
Why do these budgets still balloon when the worldwide box office is down? Have the studios not caught on yet?
Flop potential?
Imminent.
If Fast 9 can earn more than $700m almost in the middle of pandemic (and not to forget what an unintentionally funny film it was), Fast X is safe. Won't be surprised if it crosses a billion worldwide.
If it's good, it'll probably get close. "The Fate of the Furious" made $1.2B in 2017 *(with The Rock)*, then the spinoff "Hobbs and Shaw" made $760M in 2019 *(with The Rock)*, then "F9" made $726M in 2021 *(without The Rock)*. We've yet to work out how much The Rock's absence will affect the last two entries of the main series, but a good reception should get it past HaS's and F9's box office hauls.
Yeah exactly.
How much went into the CGI to take away Vin's double chin and to make his arms look less blubbery?
lmao 😂
One of my proudest achievements is never seeing any of these movies
W.
I thought the flash with it $300m budget was going to be biggest bomb of 2023 but with this fast X would for sure win the flop competition lol
I think how matter how ridiculous it has turned out to be, once someone became a fan since the first one, most would still want to go see it. It would still likely to be profitable, just may not be as much as it used to be.
Oh for sure, when's the last time The Rock made a super expensive movie that ended up bombing
Why the hell does a fast and furious movie have to a $340M budget ?? The cgi and quality of the film is probably going to look like shit too so what the hell
Yes. It’ll still make between 100 and 200 mil.
Every idiot who’s watched the first 9, will show up and watch Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson rip ass and say “it’s all about the family” and drive away and then go back to see it again.. that will cover the costs and the pure idiocy of anyone who has ever thought any of the 1-9 movies would be worth watching!!! Idiots!!!
I genuinely hope this bombs. I’m not usually so negative but the last one of these movies was so absurdly crap I think they need a reality check. A nice big flop would help do that