How can a COMEDY cost $90 to make?!?!?

I think the better question would be - how can " this " movie cost 90 million to make ? ( actually it ended up costing close to $ 115 with ads and all ). The reason was that the script had so many re-writes and all that when they began shooting the movie, back in 1998-99 , most of the cast had other projects to do and so 2 years later , they had to re-shoot scenes and they had to pay the actors their fees again so consider each main actor getting 5-10 million each and you see the money getting eaten up. No matter how you slice it , when you see the movie, that is the only question that enters your head, how can this film cost so much - the second question is probably " why am I watching this unfunny mess "

I think the costs were probably jacked up so there could be a big tax write off in due course.

The cast and the re-cuts probably did not come cheap as well!

Its that man again!!

According to the (excellent) book "Fiasco: A History of Hollywood's Iconic Flops":

-The original budget was set at $19 million.
-When Warren Beatty signed on, he was paid $8 million, making that budget impossible.
-Warren's contract gave him script approval, and he demanded many, many rewrites.
-A bunch more expensive actors were hired.
-At this point the budget was set at $40 million.
-One of the actors was injured in an accident before filming and was replaced (with Warren Beatty's best friend).
-The rewrites took so long they delayed shooting from winter of 97-98 to June of 98.
-When June of 98 rolled around, they needed to start shooting or they would lose their actors - and still need to pay them in full because of their "pay-or-play" contracts.
-Also when June of 98 rolled around, the script was still unfinished. They started shooting without it.
-Filming started late almost every day as actors tinkered with the still-unfinished script and dialogue, delaying the movie further and costing money for time spent not filming anything.
-Early into production, two days' worth of footage was stolen from a van in front of a film lab. It was never found and the scenes had to be reshot.
-Location filming was done all over the country in New York, California, South Carolina, and Idaho.
-When they filmed in Idaho, there was no snow, so they needed to make a ton of fake snow to use on camera.
-After they filmed the snow scenes, it actually snowed, so they reshot some of them with real snow.
-In August, more than a month into the shoot, Buck Henry was hired to do even more rewrites, and play a small part in the film. They paid him $1 million.
-In desperation to finish the script, group screenwriting sessions were held on set during time scheduled for filming - so actors and crew were paid to stand around doing nothing.
-Another screenwriter, Gary Ross, was hired and paid to revise the script. His revisions were never used.
-By the time the script was finished, it had cost $3 million to get written.
-Warren Beatty got into a ton of disagreements with the director, Peter Chelsom; the director had little experience on big Hollywood movies and found this hard to deal with.
-The movie needed to finish shooting by November so the stars could do other projects they were contracted for.
-Filming was already a couple of weeks over schedule.
-Because it was still being rewritten, they hadn't gotten to shoot the ending they wanted by November. They used the old ending and made a rough cut from the footage they had shot.
-The new ending was finally written in December.
-In summer of 1999, the rough cut was shown to test audiences, who hated Warren Beatty's character and the ending.
-The company decided to do reshoots to use the new ending, hoping it could save the film.
-Because of other projects, they couldn't get all the actors together to film the new ending until April of 2000. The actors had to be paid extra to do these reshoots.
-While they were filming anyway, they decided to try and fix the other problem with the film by shooting entirely new scenes to try and make Beatty's character more likeable.
-Filming finished on April 27th, 2000, and New Line insisted the movie would come out later that year.
-It did not. The lengthy post-production phase included Warren Beatty serving as editor and making his own cut of the movie, complete with additional voiceover narration provided by himself. None of this cut was used.

So how do you make a comedy cost $90 million? Easy. Hire an obsessive control freak as star and unofficial editor, make sure he doesn't get along with the inexperienced director who isn't suited to the movie, film it while you're still writing and re-writing its ridiculously expensive script, don't film anything when you're paying people to film things, re-film a bunch of stuff you've already filmed, then re-film some more two years later after bribing the actors to come back, then film some new crap for the hell of it! Any masochist with way too much money can do it!

I suspect the title of this topic was a Freudian slip. The movie is however only worth about $90 dollars. A ninety dolloar film that cost 90 million to make.

Yup, I'd say that more than qualifies as a flop.


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I watched it a few months back, not a disaster, but it’s silly, to start I like the concept of the family residing in a home in both the town, and their holiday home in the country, I thought that Goldie Hawn, Daine Keaton, Josh Hartnett, Jenna Elfman and the actress who played Charlton Heston’s wife did fine performance wise, it just went down hill by the we are introduced to Andie McDowell’s character, While the idea of Charlton Heston as a parody of himself sounds funny, it just fell short, and the climax at the end with all the characters was very silly, then there was a missing moment where Goldie Hawn never told Diane Keaton that her and Beatty had an affair together while in Minnesota and lastly they’re’s Beatty, I felt that the problems with this movie comes down to him, with the number of takes and rewrites he demanded, the man’s is a delusional narcosis, perfectionist, control freak who thinks to still a star.