The days of 300 million dollar films were long over since the 60's, what made the studio actually paid for this?
shareGumption and luck. Who knows what wizardry Jackson pulled to talk the studio heads into it?
It was probably that they were doing three films. It works out to about 90 mil per film.
At the time, 100 mil was a top-notch action flick with all the effects. Now, of course, they often hit 200 mil, but at the time it was 100 for the best stuff.
100 mil per film is actually a moderate budget, for a huge blockbuster tentpole film filled with special effects. The Marvel films now cost two or three times that much.
PJ cut a lot of corners to save money, and in ways he couldn't get away with when he made the awful "Hobbit" films.
I doubt there'll ever be anything like this again. The sheer artistry, dedication and skill on display in this trilogy is simply staggering. Epic in every sense of the word. It might have its faults, but just sit yourself down and listen to Howard Shore's magnificent, iconic score and it all just makes so much sense.
shareYes, you probably can't realistically make a better adaption than what came out with these. Except maybe to add a scene with ole Tom Bombadil dancing a merry jig. Hey derry dillo!
shareThe movies are actually marvels for what they achieved for the reported 90-100 million per film. I actually had a lot of respect for Jackson because he was able to deliver such great epic movies on a modest budget. Then he turned into George Lucas Jr and would only make movies with 200M+ budgets and do it all sitting in a studio behind a computer.
Newline studios was also a small company for a project this size. They didn't even have the ability to distribute the film internationally. They had to sell those rights to other distributors and took a much smaller percentage in the long run. At first they only had enough money to do 2 films but found some investors that made it possible to fund a trilogy filmed back to back.
The pre-production on these movies is exceptional. Nothing has ever matched the amount of prep work done for a movie.
Budgets of big movies released in 03
Return of the King 94M
Terminator 3 200M
Master and C 150M
POTC 140M
Matrix 2 150M
Last Samuri 140M
Hulk 137M
Bad Boys 2 130M
Charlies angles 120M
X2 110M
Cat in the Hat 109M