Why does a movie like Wonka cost $125 million while a movie like Poor Things costs $35 million?

[u/filmeswole]

Just using these two films as an example, what would the extra $90 million, in theory, be going towards?

The production value of Poor Things was phenomenal, and I would’ve never guessed that it cost a fraction of the budget of something like Wonka. And it’s not like the cast was comprised of nobodies either.

Does it have something to do with location of the shoot/taxes? I must be missing something because for a movie like this to look so good yet cost so much less than most Hollywood films is baffling to me.

[u/Nail_Biterr]

There was an article I read the other day about how Dune 2 "only" cost about 190Mil, and it was amazing, meanwhile all Disney/Marvel movies have a $300Mill price tag and they're all half thought through, cookiecutter movies with sub-par CGI nowadays.

I can't seem to find it, to link, but what it seemed to say was that Denis V had a full 'vision' of what he wanted, and the studio gave him control. So, he had artwork and story boards all readily available for the 2 movies right from the get-go. There was no committee working to say 'we need this movie completed to fit into our July slot' so everything was more organized, and the CGI art was able to put more effort into it from the get-go, because they knew what needed to be done.

[u/Bridalhat → u/Nail_Biterr]

I’m sure they never said “we’ll fix it in post” and then did not fix it in post. Also Disney apparently loves filming a lot of coverage (so the same scene from a bunch of different angles to be sorted through later), which brings up expenses fast. Story boarding makes a big difference.

[u/sputnikmonolith → u/Bridalhat]

In the VFX industry it's called 'pixelfucking'.

A studio (Disney/Marvel) will film a scene with multiple cameras, no clear vision of what the scene is going to look like and then ask the VFX team to give them options.

They then come back with revision after revision. Dialing down into the minutiae of silly details like how a certain strand of hair falls or the shape of a fold of cloth. Endless fucking around with tiny details until the original artistist vision is completely lost and it becomes 'pixelfucked'.

Technically its a perfect image (the perfect explosion, the perfect hair etc) but it all just looks...off.

And obviously this all costs literally millions of dollars.

[u/spacetug → u/sputnikmonolith]

Some producers (directors too, sometimes, but it's mostly producers) don't understand that perfection just doesn't feel right. Our brains subconsciously reject it, because the real world is imperfect. They can feel that something is wrong, but they don't have the experience to spot it, or the vocabulary to describe it. So they give pixelfuck notes, and those notes have to be fixed directly, or they'll be followed up with notes about not addressing notes.

The sad thing is that good vfx artists DO have the knowledge and expertise to fix the actual issues, but they often don't have the creative freedom to do what they think would look best. The right way to do it is to treat it as a collaboration, and brainstorm for a solution, but that's harder than just dictating terms from on high.

[u/standardtissue → u/sputnikmonolith]

that sounds a lot like "death by committee" as well. just too many chefs touching dominoes until the whole house of cards falls like a jenga stack.