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Many people are claiming that James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar is the most expensive movie of all time. Is it really?
Avatar has a reported budget of $230M (although some sources suggest it is $200M). Assuming $230M is acccurate, that makes Avatar officially the fourth most expensive movie of all time, behind Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($250M), Spider-Man 3 ($258M), and the official no.1 most expensive movie, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($300M).
The above list may get a shuffling over the coming months given Disney's sequel to Tron, titled Tron Legacy, is rumored to have a budget of around $300M. Disney has denied this, claiming the figure is no where near that, but speculation continues since Disney refuse to divulge the actual number. For now though, we'll ignore the speculation (but I thought it was worthy of comment).
Officially Avatar may be the fourth most expensive movie, but unofficially it might actually have cost more than Pirates in total. The New York Times recently published an article in which they estimate when Avatar's marketing budget and production budget is combined, the real cost of Avatar is bordering on $500M which, some will argue, makes it the unofficial most expensive movie of all time.
However, when it comes to marrying up production costs with marketing costs, it is almost impossible to arrive at exact figures for any film, particularly since studio's like to keep said information well guarded.
Guarded or not, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End didn't have near the marketing machine that Avatar has behind it, and it would be safe to assume that it didn't come close to blowing $200M on marketing. So it would seem if the reports are true, then there may be something to the argument that Avatar is the most expensive movie of all time.
Well, almost.
The true cost of a movie, if we're really going to take into account all the varying factors such as production costs, marketing costs and so forth, is the relative cost of making the film when inflation is factored in. Interestingly, with inflation allowed for, neither Avatar nor Pirates of the Caribbean 3 come out on top.
You may be surprised to learn that the 1968 film War and Peace, a Russian film that took seven years to make, is reported to have cost $560M with inflation factored in.
So, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is officially the most expensive movie ever made. Unofficially, Avatar is the most expensive movie ever made. Unofficially but with inflation factored in, War and Peace is the most expensive movie ever made.
There you have it.
Tags: Avatar
