I can only speak for myself when it comes to The Hobbit franchise, but I think it has been quite abysmal. Coming off the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which I did not enjoy, this just looked like more of the same, and that turned out to be true. Or is it that it tried to be those previous films, creating overly long and incomplete films to bore me?
With the December 17th release of the final (yes!) film in the franchise, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, approaching, the AP is reporting the production budget for the trilogy of films has ballooned to $745 million, the largest cost for a filmed trilogy ever. I guess they thought setting that much money on fire was bad for the environment.
The record for highest production cost for a single film is still held by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which was budgeted at about $300 million (which is shocking). With that being said, I have no idea why a studio would invest so much money into a project. I understand the films will make a ton of money (the first two films have amassed a box office total of $1.98 billion), but putting that many eggs into one basket seems like a very foolish idea. It is unclear whether or not that massive number includes marketing and distribution, but if it doesn’t, I cannot even imagine what the grand total is.
The thing is, I would be more okay with Warner Bros. and all the other studios involved spending so much money if the final product they delivered was good, but it is not. Instead, all we’ve received is nearly six hours of walking and consequence-free action. Why does that need to cost $745 million? Yeah, Smaaauuuug probably cost a pretty penny, but what they’re doing in these films is not all that different from the previous three, and those did not cost that much ($281 million is the reported budget for the three Lord of the Rings films). So, it is quite baffling.
When asked about the budget, Candice McDonough, senior vice president of Warner Bros. Entertainment and New Line Cinema said, “We don’t comment on production budgets.” That makes me believe this number is under what it actually is, which is scary.
You can watch the trailer for the latest film below.
Original report from the AP.
