Cloud Atlas is hitting theaters next weekend, opening in approximately 1,950 locations. Budgeted around $100 million it’s going to be a tough sell for Warner Bros. given it’s six-part narrative and 2 hour and 43 minute running time. That $100 million number, however, is a bit misleading.
Originally budgeted around $170 million, Warner Bros. passed on the project only to circle back after the Wachowskis scrounged up $100 million to get it made. WB then came in and scored North American rights to the pic for a mere $20 million. WB will also handling distribution in Canada, Spain, France, UK and Japan, but I was unable to find how much additional funds were ponied up for the additional territories.
It’s a curious thing to look at a project like this, for me at least, as we’ve been wondering lately just what is necessary to get a studio to put a little risk into the films they release. WB obviously wasn’t willing to risk an entire production budget on Cloud Atlas, but for $20 million and what has the appearance of being a solid marketing push, they seem comfortable. Should the studio be lauded for its efforts or is there still the need for studios to take some larger risks on more challenging films in the future that don’t involve Hobbits and superheroes?
Speaking of Hobbits, the reported $1 billion being spent on the three Hobbit films (though the studio says that’s inflated) makes it almost impossible to imagine how many films were turned down or stripped of additional funds to get those made.
With WB and partners spending that kind of cash on those films, it helps explain why studio head Jeff Robinov recently made an impromptu trip to Namibia to plug some holes that were sending George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road off track and over budget. After leaving, producer Denise di Novi was left on set to supervise Fury Road, which has a budget in the $100-125 million range. Lucky sequels/prequels, they get all the cash, even if their last film was 27 years ago.
Meanwhile, Sharon Waxman at The Wrap is saying Megan Ellison’s Hollywood efforts spending money on films such as Lawless, Killing Them Softly, The Master and Zero Dark Thirty “will ruin what is left of the independent movie business.” Why? Because she’s spending too much on films that will ultimately end up financial losers, hurting the future prospects of the people that made them.
“Every big-ticket failure kills another great movie in its infancy,” says Waxman.
According to Waxman, The Master “should have been made for $10 million, or $12 million” instead of the $35+ million Ellison financed the film for. I wonder, Sharon, where would you have made $25 million worth of budgetary cuts? I understand wondering why a film cost a certain amount to make, but I doubt Waxman has the budgetary details to say how much it should have cost.
An article such as Waxman’s scares me. Granted, I don’t want to see good films lose money and I love what Megan Ellison is doing, I simply hope it pays off so she will continue to finance challenging, adult films. Perhaps that does mean cutting back a bit, but I’m not going to be the one to tell her how much to spend.
With that bit of rambling out of the way, here’s a new character poster for Cloud Atlas featuring Jim Sturgess. If you haven’t yet read my review of the film and would like my thoughts you can get that here.
