Toho Kingdom

That’s a good question. I can say right off the bat that Weta Digital has a history of doing more with less in terms of CGI quality. District 9, with its relatively low budget, would’ve looked like crap if anyone else did the effects.

Wingard said in an interview that it’s actually cheaper not to have rain and snow effects everywhere, but even taking this into account, there did seem to be other effects that would’ve accounted for the same amount of workload, I would imagine (lots of building destruction, dust, etc). I dunno. All I know is I love Weta digital and hope the MV keeps using them going forward (if it does go forward)

For K:SI, the answer is quite simple: the cast. Bigger name people are more expensive and often inflate the budgets of movies. For example, Rampage reportedly cost $120 Million...$20 Million of which was JUST paying Dwayne Johnson for being in the movie.

K:SI had the biggest name cast of all the MonsterVerse films: Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, and John C. Reilly. That adds up. KOTM and even moreso GvK had comparatively fewer name actors, and as a result probably spent significantly less on the cast.

I also read somewhere that Ghidorah's serpentine neck movements were quite the technical challenge, so that might have added to costs too (though probably not by a lot).

Another thing might just be a possible lessening cost of VFX over the years. As we've developed more human skill and program capability when it comes to making VFX look good, we can do more in less time, meaning that high quality VFX isn't as wildly expensive as it once was.

Also I think Adam Wingard mentioned using his own low-budget sensibilities to be economic with production in GvK.

They didn't care for the script? Probably spent 25 bucks on it.

Wasn't it filmed back-to-back with G:KOTM? Perhaps a speedier pre-production phase than KOTM also kept costs down. I've read before that film budgets sometimes include whatever costs are associated with previous versions that stayed in development hell before morphing into the final product. Unless pre-production for both movies started simulatenously? I dunno.

Yeah, I was gonna say it was likely a factor of cutting out or lowering budgets for the actors for this film. KOTM, and KSI had a bunch of veteran/prestige actors to accommodate on top of their FX budgets. (Also, would either of them being produced during/before the merger with Tancent (sp?) have anything to do with it?)

I always thought it was how short and fast paced the film is. Stuff was certainly cut out.

I don't think GvK was really less expensive than G14 or KotM. It has so many decent VFX sequences.

You guys are aware of that many articles mentioned GvK's budget as $200m, Adam Wingard also once called GvK as a "$200million movie", and IMDB also states its budget as $200m right? So Wikizilla, Wikipedia, and Gojipedia are currently stating GvK's budget as like "$155-200 million".

I guess GvK has got some offset from Australian government. The government provides a lot of tax refunds and cash offset polices these days.

Few days ago, there was an announcement that Furiosa(prequel of Mad Max)" is also going to be filmed in Australia due to the 40% cost offset policy.

https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/cultur ... 57kbr.html
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/cultur ... 57iac.html

It is also said that Thor: Ragnarok and Alien: Covenant have been provided $45m of offset when they filmed in Australia.

https://variety.com/2015/film/news/kong ... 201626409/

So I think it is pretty much plausible that GvK actually costed $200m but has got refunded about $40m from Australian government.

You are looking at totals and not dollar per minute.

Wingard knows how to stretch a dollar. From planning everything in advance to a great detail, due to staring films with micro budgets in up (this allows you to budget properly, lock in resources, changes = money etc...it's cheaper to buy a flight a month from now than tomorrow type deal...but with sets, cgi, etc) and knowing how to properly edit (you can save a lot on reshoots if you can edit around an issue and the audience will be none-the-wiser...there were minimal reshoots)

Adam Wingard saved the Monsterverse. A lot of great people did a lot of great things with the movie but Wingard did so many things right. He squeezed every thing he could out of every dollar spent and made a good, fun movie.

Kentmick wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:15 pm From planning everything in advance to a great detail

Unless the editing was even more of a drunken hack-job than we think it was, nothing about the movie I watched was planned in advance in great detail.

Zasraniec wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:52 pm I always thought it was how short and fast paced the film is. Stuff was certainly cut out.

I think the budget was higher than the end result would suggest, especially with so much cut stuff. You could probably slice a decent amount off of the total and have what the final movie is truly worth. I don't think the final movie looks quite like $160M - $200M.

goji89 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:22 am They didn't care for the script? Probably spent 25 bucks on it.

That might be too generous.

Kentmick wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:15 pm From planning everything in advance to a great detail,

Kentmick wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:15 pm and knowing how to properly edit (you can save a lot on reshoots if you can edit around an issue and the audience will be none-the-wiser...there were minimal reshoots)

And you know that's wrong. Enough footage to make a 5 hour version? Cut characters, leaving actors out? Cut plot points? That's not necessarily an indication of a greatly detailed plan.

MegaEvilSaurus666 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:06 am

Zasraniec wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 12:52 pm I always thought it was how short and fast paced the film is. Stuff was certainly cut out.

I think the budget was higher than the end result would suggest, especially with so much cut stuff. You could probably slice a decent amount off of the total and have what the final movie is truly worth. I don't think the final movie looks quite like $160M - $200M.

goji89 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:22 am They didn't care for the script? Probably spent 25 bucks on it.

That might be too generous.

Kentmick wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:15 pm From planning everything in advance to a great detail,

Kentmick wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:15 pm and knowing how to properly edit (you can save a lot on reshoots if you can edit around an issue and the audience will be none-the-wiser...there were minimal reshoots)

And you know that's wrong. Enough footage to make a 5 hour version? Cut characters, leaving actors out? Cut plot points? That's not necessarily an indication of a greatly detailed plan.

It was a greatly detailed plan. The movie costing that much and having that much extra footage tells you enough. You can't have it both ways.

Wingard had to do very little reshoots. The movie could have been a lot longer, but it was trimmed down and is fine. You can't trim a movie down and have the end product do better than the previous movie, but during a pandemic, without having a good plan of what you would like and what you can do.

If your opinion is this or that, that's fine.

Wingard got more out of each Dollar than most directors could. He shot a lot more footage and it was still cheaper than prior movies. On top of that, since we are throwing opinions around, I would say almost every aspect of the movie, minus the dialogue and music is a higher quality than the prior movies.

The movie was planned out thoroughly and meticulously. The movie just couldn't be as good, look as good, or perform well at the box office otherwise if Wingard doesn't know what he was doing.

Kentmick wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:36 am

MegaEvilSaurus666 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 21, 2021 7:06 am something something...more of MES’s horrendous takes

It was a greatly detailed plan. The movie costing that much and having that much extra footage tells you enough. You can't have it both ways.

Wingard had to do very little reshoots. The movie could have been a lot longer, but it was trimmed down and is fine. You can't trim a movie down and have the end product do better than the previous movie, but during a pandemic, without having a good plan of what you would like and what you can do.

If your opinion is this or that, that's fine.

Wingard got more out of each Dollar than most directors could. He shot a lot more footage and it was still cheaper than prior movies. On top of that, since we are throwing opinions around, I would say almost every aspect of the movie, minus the dialogue and music is a higher quality than the prior movies.

The movie was planned out thoroughly and meticulously. The movie just couldn't be as good, look as good, or perform well at the box office otherwise if Wingard doesn't know what he was doing.

Agreed with everything here. I bet Wingard knew how to keep costs down and use the budget effectively due to his indie background.

darthzilla99 wrote: ↑Sun Apr 18, 2021 7:17 pm So as we have heard and read, KOTM had a budget of 170 million and KSI had a budget of 180 million while GVK had a budget of 165 million supposedly...So basically what I'm wondering is, what drove up the costs of the other monsterverse movies that kept their titular characters screen time limited?

Between G:KOTM and GvK, my guess is licensing from Toho. The studio had to license Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra for the film, plus license the Godzilla and Mothra musical themes. GvK had no additional licensing because no additional monsters or musical cues were used.

It is probably a big combination of a number of factors. Probably a little bit of everything everyone mentioned above.

- Godzilla 2014 was being made in...2014. You are talking about a solid 6-7 years of dollar inflation.
- Kong: Skull Island had the most mainstream and well-known cast of the MV, AND it was a "big location movie" which might have contributed a bit. It also featured a number of creatures that had to be 'built' even if they were only on screen for a few moments or scenes. That includes every differently sized Skullcrawler.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters had 4 main monsters as well as a set of secondary monsters...all big CGI undertakings. For GKOTM, they DID have to license 3 additional monsters from Toho as well as the Godzilla and Mothra music they used. Now, I am sure that is NOT everything or insanely expensive all on its own, but it is likely a contributing factor. Same with licensing to do a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's song.

All of the above mentioned movies seemed to have a big 'live action production' element to them. It seemed like they all had a lot of locations and a lot of big sets/production design elements, and the latter two had pretty large casts of monsters and creatures. As WELL as being fairly extensive ensemble human casts of their own. The more primary and supporting cast you have in a film in speaking roles, the more you are spending. Even if they get cut out. They mentioned how in the script for KOTM, they had basically every human character getting dialogue consistently in all of the big group scenes...and a good chunk of that stuff is what gets snipped out in editing.

GvK was generally rocking fewer characters and fewer monsters(even fewer when you consider any time/money saved by not having to design G and K completely from the ground up)...seemed like they had fewer general locations, fewer huge live action sets, and probably did more 'smaller sets and blue screen' type of work.

Also...think about this. Every time you see a monster, the entire CGI environment/city they occupy must also be 'built' digitally. In GvK the only major city location they had to build was Hong Kong. In KOTM, between all of the locations and upcroppings of all of the different titans, it just felt like you were dealing with more of that sort of thing.

Again...no SINGLE aspect here is the big key to shaving millions upon millions off of a budget, but if you save a little here, go a little tighter there, it adds up. Do a blue screen on a set half the size, do a set with a blue screen instead of moving the shoot to a big location, stick to more interiors instead of exteriors.

Also...after G14 and Kong: Skull Island both performed so well, WB was probably much more comfortable really 'cutting the check' on King of the Monsters, believing it would be even bigger by default than the first two. When it under-performed a bit, they probably dedicated some time to a "budget meeting" with GvK to decide where they could tighten things up a bit, and Wingard might have been happy to oblige and make a bit of a leaner and meaner movie.

^ Bingo

H-Man wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:34 am Wasn't it filmed back-to-back with G:KOTM? Perhaps a speedier pre-production phase than KOTM also kept costs down. I've read before that film budgets sometimes include whatever costs are associated with previous versions that stayed in development hell before morphing into the final product. Unless pre-production for both movies started simulatenously? I dunno.

More like the filming of GvK was back-to-back with the release of KotM.

My own personal fan theory? It's cheaper because they didn't have to pay the writer much this go around. I figure the script was paid for with say a small coke and half a meatball sub?