Is the Budget a Problem

Gassy Man

I'm watching The Imitation Game. Beyond its crackling script, the film has beautiful cinematography and a very capable directorial style, marred only by the occasional close-up insert shot that jars us back to present day. The acting is brilliant, the editing moves the story along nicely, and as a historical drama, it relies on costumes and sets to take us back to World War Two. And it was made for $14 million.

I couldn't help but wonder as I watched it why the last few Bond films, made for 10 to 20 times that amount, somehow seemed all the more unimpressive by comparison. I simply don't see 10 to 20 times more movie. Yes, there are some explosions and expensive toys, but the filmmaking itself just seems more crude. And, no, just because they may be made for different audiences doesn't change the bang for buck equation happening.

So that made me wonder -- is the budget a problem? Do the Bond films become these colossal undertakings that burn through money simply because they can and not because they need to in order to tell a good story? I keep harkening back to the earliest Bonds, some made relatively on a shoestring budget but that are classics.

Maybe the best thing for Bond would be to cut the budget and just get on with it.

Higgins

Nah, then we'd get the crap movies like TLD and LTK again ;%

heartbroken_mr_drax

The current films to me lack plot backbone that keeps Bond (and the audience) on mission. There's too much fluff.

Needs to be back to basics - big budget or otherwise. Something like TLD redone in Syria with the Russian elements would be perfect right now. Just the mission too. Forget Blofeld, he belongs in the 60s Bonds.

Chriscoop

I think a big budget can be a problem as from the very start plans are made for expensive sequences knowing you have the money and over reliance on these aspects overtake the script and story to make the film a success. Would SP have lost anything if the Blofeld lair explosion was not in it or done via cgi? I'm not a fan of cgi per say but it could have been used there. Also the Rome car chase, angels and demons had plenty of action in Rome for a lot less money, and there are far better car chases done for far less money. I enjoy that scene well enough but again would SP have been a worse film without it and in its place some more scenes with decent dialogue? Even a longer sequence with Monica Belucci. Essentialy the huge budget made SP feel a touch bloated, all my favourite parts are not huge spectacle scenes.

zaphod99

Gassy Man wrote:

I'm watching The Imitation Game. Beyond its crackling script, the film has beautiful cinematography and a very capable directorial style, marred only by the occasional close-up insert shot that jars us back to present day. The acting is brilliant, the editing moves the story along nicely, and as a historical drama, it relies on costumes and sets to take us back to World War Two. And it was made for $14 million.

I couldn't help but wonder as I watched it why the last few Bond films, made for 10 to 20 times that amount, somehow seemed all the more unimpressive by comparison. I simply don't see 10 to 20 times more movie. Yes, there are some explosions and expensive toys, but the filmmaking itself just seems more crude. And, no, just because they may be made for different audiences doesn't change the bang for buck equation happening.

So that made me wonder -- is the budget a problem? Do the Bond films become these colossal undertakings that burn through money simply because they can and not because they need to in order to tell a good story? I keep harkening back to the earliest Bonds, some made relatively on a shoestring budget but that are classics.

Maybe the best thing for Bond would be to cut the budget and just get on with it.

I think a lower budget will be a necessity more than a choice. Despite good numbers Spectre underperformed relative to budget, expectations and critical response. The likelihood of a new actor and distributors also are likely to drive a reining in of the recent excess and a more 'back to basics' approach which many of us will welcome. If successful over time the bloated approach will resurface as it has done before as the pendulum swings only to be reined in once more. Such is the nature of things. Ohm. All shall be well... Kumbaya. Peace out.

Thunderbird 2

This is a tricky one, because the scale of the budget and how it is utilized can be scrutinized from different angles.

I have no doubt the sponsors and investors of the films have a much bigger say than they used to do. Add to that, some of them will have very fixed ideas about how their products should be featured. Sony and Tom Ford immediately spring to mind. However, differing film techniques and directors attitudes will either help or hinder matters as well.
CR-06 was very subtle with its effects, and the the Skyfleet Super Jumbo and Collapsing house in Venice were wow moments. But the expectation (prob tempered by DAD's disastrous reaction from the critics and media) meant it was not hyped to the same extent.

In SP, the advertising and publicity was relentless, I mean REALLY relentless you literally could not escape it unless you were in the middle of no-where with no phone! The press junket on the DB11 was really pushing it as a must see aspect, that there would be something extraordinary about the car. - We get a straightforward car chase with flame throwers, that ends with a repeat of the Glastron boat trick from Moonraker and that's it. - All that build up, all that hoo-hah and speculation of something that, while well done by everyone involved, does not bring anything new to the table.

I agree the script's need to be tighter, and they need to be more of a challenge too. In Skyfall, M-Mansf's speech to the committee about "our enemies aren't on maps, they don't have flags" had me sadly shaking my head. Ever since the negative reaction to North Korea's portrayal in DAD, the Bond films have conspicuously steered away from that kind of controversial story line. Probably not to spook the marketing people and alienate a portion of the audience and investors, but coupled with the somewhat awkward 9 Eyes plot form SF, it took any sense of scale out of the recent films for me. It also left modern Blofeld looking somewhat small and impotent.

Bond films are not Spooks or a 5 part BBC melodrama. - They are action films first and foremost, hand in hand with spy stories. Its about time they got back to that, and put the money on the screen, instead of into the advertising and PR events.

Thunderpussy

I'd like to begin that I see no problem with the new Craig Bond films, so wouldn't think the budget
Is a problem. Bond has a history of spending the money that's needed, and doing as much
" In camera" as possible, which is expensive.
The money spent is all up there on the screen. As pointed out to me long ago, moving an entire crew to
Some of the most exotic locations, housing and feeding them costs ! But if you want to see these breathtaking
Places, it has to be done. Or we could go back to the old idea of using stock footage and film it in a studio.

superado

Because the Bond series has become the flagship franchise for whichever studio is running it, it had gotten "too big to fail" to borrow from the 2008 Financial Crisis. As it's been touched on in the Marc Forster QoS thread, the problem of script development wasn't unique to that film. The stakes were too high for a Bond movie and according to John Cork's "James Bond, the Legacy," from the earliest films it was pretty frequent for the team to undertake an arduous and gruelling task just to get a Bond script to a better than acceptable level, often bringing in a string of writers that mostly went uncredited. In the current environment, greenlighting a quasi-arthouse film by Sam Mendes with a low budget would be considered a tolerable gamble considering his status...unless it were a Bond movie.

heartbroken_mr_drax

superado wrote:

In the current environment, greenlighting a quasi-arthouse film by Sam Mendes with a low budget would be considered a tolerable gamble considering his status...unless it were a Bond movie.

Precisely. Bond is a blockbuster, the budgets have always been big by comparison.

zaphod99 wrote:

Despite good numbers Spectre underperformed relative to budget, expectations and critical response.

Based on this the budget may return to sub-$200m - but who knows, with a new Bond they may throw a whole heap of money at it banking on the fact that interest in the new fella would generate?

walther p99

I think Spectre's budget was way too bloated, I understand Bond needs a lot of money for SFX, locations, etc. but SF had nearly half of SP's budget but was way more successful and imaginative, sometimes less is more.

Gassy Man

I'm still wondering though if the budget is the problem -- because they plan on blowing a lot of things up and CGIing so much, they don't focus as much on the script and other niceties. The argument is made that they have to spend a lot of money to make a lot of money, but do they spend it well? I didn't find Spectre any worse than Skyfall in terms of providing bang for buck but just a little different. But even in terms of return on investment. The Imitation Game cost $14 million. Let's assume it spent the same on marketing (it didn't). That's $28 million -- let's just go with $30 million. But it's made about $300 million worldwide, or ten times its costs. Skyfall cost $150 million to $200 million -- let's just say that with marketing, the cost was $300 million. It made $1.109 billion, or only four times its cost. And The Imitation Game is better filmmaking.

Gassy Man

Thunderpussy wrote:

I'd like to begin that I see no problem with the new Craig Bond films, so wouldn't think the budget
Is a problem. Bond has a history of spending the money that's needed, and doing as much
" In camera" as possible, which is expensive.
The money spent is all up there on the screen. As pointed out to me long ago, moving an entire crew to
Some of the most exotic locations, housing and feeding them costs ! But if you want to see these breathtaking
Places, it has to be done. Or we could go back to the old idea of using stock footage and film it in a studio.

How many breathtaking places did we really see though? A lot in Skyfall and Spectre, for instance, was CGI'd, and we mostly saw interior scenes. Was the Spectre headquarters really all that impressive? Did so much happen there to justify the need for the exterior set? A train in the desert, by itself, is not particularly remarkable, nor is a creaky mansion on some moor. If they'd built a volcanic lair or actually shown more of the locations I might feel differently, but there was nothing particularly breathtaking in the films. In this respect, the older films are much more interesting. They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

Matt S

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

Gassy Man

Bleah. The house set looked like what it was -- a creaky old house in the middle of nowhere. Contrast that to, say, the house in "Mr. Holmes" at the beginning. In terms of London, meh. None of it strikes me as having the scale of a film that cost a quarter of a billion dollars.

heartbroken_mr_drax

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

I don't agree. All of the Craig films have interesting locations. It's probably more of a case of Bond films no longer having gobsmacking locations because unlike the 60s/70s - exotic locations are now generally more accessible, normalised and featured in other films. I think Shanghai in SF is one of the best recent locations.

What's happened to Bond is a hard question to answer, but I think it has something to do with the producers and writers suffering from a bit of confusion as to what Bond needs to be and what the films are supposed to represent. The yo-yo differences between GE, TND, TWINE, DAD, CR, QoS, SF and SP highlight this aptly. There's limited consistency and in my mind it just ends up negatively affecting that main actor who's playing Bond...

Matt S

heartbroken_mr_drax wrote:

I think Shanghai in SF is one of the best recent locations.

I was never convinced that Bond even went to Shanghai (he didn't).

Gassy Man

heartbroken_mr_drax wrote:

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

I don't agree. All of the Craig films have interesting locations. It's probably more of a case of Bond films no longer having gobsmacking locations because unlike the 60s/70s - exotic locations are now generally more accessible, normalised and featured in other films. I think Shanghai in SF is one of the best recent locations.

What's happened to Bond is a hard question to answer, but I think it has something to do with the producers and writers suffering from a bit of confusion as to what Bond needs to be and what the films are supposed to represent. The yo-yo differences between GE, TND, TWINE, DAD, CR, QoS, SF and SP highlight this aptly. There's limited consistency and in my mind it just ends up negatively affecting that main actor who's playing Bond...

What did we really see in Shanghai, though? It was mostly the neon-lit highway and a modern office building -- both of which could have been anywhere in the world. Almost everything was a set. That's the typical route of modern films -- a quick establishing shot and then a lot of interior sets.

heartbroken_mr_drax

Gassy Man wrote:

What did we really see in Shanghai, though?  It was mostly the neon-lit highway and a modern office building -- both of which could have been anywhere in the world.  Almost everything was a set.  That's the typical route of modern films -- a quick establishing shot and then a lot of interior sets.

haha well that shows maybe how well the money was spent? I thought they were there ;%

MarcAngeDraco

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

As do I. Which is another reason as to why I prefer QOS to CR. Despite visiting each location for a small amount of time, we get to really soak up an aspect of it's culture - i.e. the Palio chase in Siena, the opera in Austria, the political/economic climate in La Paz, etc. And it's also why I highly rate the second half of TND. We get a good dosage of culture during the bike chase, the shower scene in the alley, the bike shop and then we really get to soak up some beautiful imagery of Ha Long bay.

The budget is an interesting topic. When they scaled down the funds from QOS to SF, we got a more focused story and a better Bond film, and then when they upped the funds we get a thin plot for SP. Hopefully this forces them to scale back for the next one. Let's not forget how much they were able to do with $1m for DN. Of course, $1m won't get them very far nowadays, but there's something in less money forces creativity.

Charmed & Dangerous

heartbroken_mr_drax wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

What did we really see in Shanghai, though?  It was mostly the neon-lit highway and a modern office building -- both of which could have been anywhere in the world.  Almost everything was a set.  That's the typical route of modern films -- a quick establishing shot and then a lot of interior sets.

haha well that shows maybe how well the money was spent? I thought they were there ;%

Even the establishing shots were filmed in Broadgate in London - And just set dressed to look like Shanghai. 8-)

Charmed & Dangerous

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

I miss this aspect too. I think it has to do with the breathless pace of the modern films - in the 60s and 70s, they took time to show the scenery so the audience could enjoy it, instead of just flashing past it.

Number24

"The Imitation Game" was made by Norwegian director Morten Tyldum. The movie was his first English language movie, and from home he was used to small budgets. I think he commented on how big the budget was on The Imitation Game was when he was making it. Tyldum was used to making something cheap look expensive. Many directors have commented on how this often forces them to be more creative.

Morten Tyldum is now fiming the sci-fi "Passengers" starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt.

Gassy Man

That's exactly what I'm getting at -- they get these huge budgets and then feel compelled to spend them. But the money seems to go more to salaries and travel than to translating the script into a larger budget film.

In terms of sets, a typical house in the U.S. costs $200,000. They could build five for a million -- 50 for $10 million. Imagine what kind of set could be built that's equivalent to 50 houses for potentially 1/20 of the overall budget alone. But I'm not sure we've seen that. Was the fake house in Skyfall the equivalent? The neon set of glass where Bond fights Patrice? The basement Secret Service headquarters? The casino? Could they have simply found existing spaces and redressed them for far less?

These productions take years to make, and they're generally made with lackluster scripts for the prices they're paying.

heartbroken_mr_drax

The 1980s Bond's, following MR had their budgets strangled didn't they? Can remember this cropping up in the "Making of" documentaries.

IMO the 1980s Bonds are the best example of function over form as they had some very tight, complex story lines and seemed to finesse the formula well.

OP IMO is the best example of plot layout, usage of locations and suspense. It's a pure mission that's established through espionage and resolved fully by Bond. All completed for sub-$70m (2016 dollars).

Gassy Man

I've no problem with their spending a lot of money, so long as what they end up with is commensurate. But it's like they're on a big shopping spree and coming home with a lot of useless junk rather than going with a list and getting what they really need.

In terms of production, the 80s Bonds were fine. I don't know that they were all that great as filmmaking, and I didn't think so then. But times and tastes change, so what people felt was aesthetically correct at one point may not be what they think is so later, and so on.

It's a false dilemma to say that the choice is only between a "lean and mean," well-written film and one where they spend ridiculous amounts of money but use a crap script. They can certainly spend ridiculous amounts and come up with a great script, though that seems to rarely happen. Casino Royale was the closest thing in years. The problem is they tend to think in terms of the false dilemma, and they hire people who are great at spending money and taking years to produce a product rather than a solid director like Tyldum who can get the job done for far less -- or, they hire such a director and then corrupt him with having to spend huge amounts of money and take the production to various corners of the world but show little of it for audiences.

heartbroken_mr_drax

Gassy Man wrote:

It's a false dilemma to say that the choice is only between a "lean and mean," well-written film and one where they spend ridiculous amounts of money but use a crap script. They can certainly spend ridiculous amounts and come up with a great script, though that seems to rarely happen. Casino Royale was the closest thing in years. The problem is they tend to think in terms of the false dilemma, and they hire people who are great at spending money and taking years to produce a product rather than a solid director like Tyldum who can get the job done for far less -- or, they hire such a director and then corrupt him with having to spend huge amounts of money and take the production to various corners of the world but show little of it for audiences.

Hmmm. Who knows. Maybe the next Bond film with a new Bond, new studio, lesser-known director will be produced for less money and may have a greater script to show for it.

You're right about the false dilemma, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist as a real element to consider. I recently watched "A Faster Horse" - about the development of the new Ford Mustang. It had so many parallels to the creation of Bond films, audience expectations, development, committees, budgets, marketing, history etc. that demonstrated to me that the effort required/struggle of making Bond films are all the things that must go into it to keep people happy.

Bond is a blockbuster, it's a Mustang, a Toyota Corolla or a famous wine that gets churned out at common intervals. It better meet the common KPIs or it will get panned. The dilemma is (false or otherwise) that this attracts big budgets, committees and many fingers in pies. Superado touches on this occuring throughout the entire EON franchise. We can't be kidding ourselves that Bond isn't the Mustang of the film world, because it kinda is...

walther p99

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

I definitely think SF had a great atmosphere throughout but especially in Scotland, they nailed the whole serene, quiet but cold and bleak landscape that personifies Scotland. Shanghai I can understand since that was a lot of trickery and mostly second unit work but before I researched it I figure Craig and all actually went to Shanghai so it was successful in that regard. Matt what are the differences between SF's London and SP's London?

heartbroken_mr_drax

walther p99 wrote:

I definitely think SF had a great atmosphere throughout but especially in Scotland, they nailed the whole serene, quiet but cold and bleak landscape that personifies Scotland. Shanghai I can understand since that was a lot of trickery and mostly second unit work but before I researched it I figure Craig and all actually went to Shanghai so it was successful in that regard.

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Gassy Man

walther p99 wrote:

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

They made the locations seem to live and breathe on the screen instead of just seem placesetters.

I miss this about the old films. However, Skyfall did this successfully with the Skyfall manor by really taking full advantage of the set and using its destruction in the finale. London was also very well used in Skyfall, especially when compared to London's use in Spectre.

I definitely think SF had a great atmosphere throughout but especially in Scotland, they nailed the whole serene, quiet but cold and bleak landscape that personifies Scotland. Shanghai I can understand since that was a lot of trickery and mostly second unit work but before I researched it I figure Craig and all actually went to Shanghai so it was successful in that regard. Matt what are the differences between SF's London and SP's London?

Just to illustrate my point, how many Scots did we meet? How many homes or buildings did we see beside the manor house? They flew a plane through some mountains and showed Bond and M standing outside a car. It's as minimalist as Shanghai -- virtually identical in concept. The road/landscape, the exterior of a building, the interior of the building, and almost no people.

Contrast this with Turkey in From Russia with Love or Japan in You Only Live Twice. Just no comparison.

heartbroken_mr_drax

Gassy Man wrote:

It's as minimalist as Shanghai -- virtually identical in concept.  The road/landscape, the exterior of a building, the interior of the building, and almost no people.

Sounds like Mendes' aesthetic to me more than a new Bond style itself. His films, American Beauty and especially Road to Perdition feature this sparse, ponderous, minimalist style (Conrad Hall's cinematography).

QoS featured great location 'feeling' - especially in Sienna and Haiti.

Gassy Man

heartbroken_mr_drax wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

It's as minimalist as Shanghai -- virtually identical in concept.  The road/landscape, the exterior of a building, the interior of the building, and almost no people.

Sounds like Mendes' aesthetic to me more than a new Bond style itself. His films, American Beauty and especially Road to Perdition feature this sparse, ponderous, minimalist style (Conrad Hall's cinematography).

QoS featured great location 'feeling' - especially in Sienna and Haiti.

That's true in part, but Forster does a lot of the same in QOS -- the hotel in the middle of the desert is rather too much like Spectre headquarters in Spectre, right down to being in the desert and populated by almost nobody. He has a scene of an SUV driving through the desert -- not unlike the Aston Martin in Skyfall or the boat in Spectre. The minimalist dogfight in QOS is a lot like the minimalist car chase in Spectre. In each of these films, the minimalism is obvious.

We get more of Haiti and Italy in QUS, but really the only one of Craig's films that seems to have the scale the script calls for is Casino Royale, and as good as it is, it still does not measure up to the early Bonds.