MovieChat Forums > Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) Discussion > $44M budget in 1985?

$44M budget in 1985?

posted 10 years ago by mariusar
4 replies | jump to latest

Just watched this again for the first time in years and I am frankly quite surprised by the reported budget for this film. It just seems like an absurdly large amount of money for a film back in 1985 [btw, I was in my teens then and yes I saw this on the bigscreen], even for an explosion filled action film like Rambo FB2.

Is it just me?

Really curious and am looking for some honest, hopefully factual industry-knowledgeable comments on this if possible.

cheers and tia,
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

[–] Hendry_William_French 10 years ago

I'd bet about 12-14 million of that was Stallone's salary. I remember reading the real budget was somewhere around 30 million, I think that's more realistic.

On a similar note, Rambo III was in the guinness book of world records as the most expensive movie of all time when it came out (at over 60 million bucks). The Rambo sequels definitely were like big time old Hollywood epics in terms of scale but just action variants of them. It wouldn't surprise me if those were the real figures but I think in both cases the final budget was inflated by Stallone's salary (which in those days was at least 15 million).

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[–] mariusar 10 years ago

@Lonestarr: Thanks a ton for responding. :)

Yeah, good point about Sly's salary - definitely massive at the time.

I did see that Rambo III cost $60M+...that one I could understand a bit more though, based on all the extras and the huge sets that were constructed. Not to mention all those seemingly legit attack choppers.

Guess I just felt that FB2 looked like a much smaller film in terms of set pieces and such and that's what struck me as incongruous with the reported budget.

cheers and thanks again,
-mariusar

--
"The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

[–] Hendry_William_French 10 years ago

@Lonestarr: Thanks a ton for responding. :)

You're welcome! :)

I did see that Rambo III cost $60M+...that one I could understand a bit more though, based on all the extras and the huge sets that were constructed. Not to mention all those seemingly legit attack choppers.

I remember there was a topic on the Rambo III board saying similar to what you said here, that is it didn't look like such a high budget film either (even though you're right the attack choppers and such were legit). It's a strange one since I read a 1988 article on the making of the film that said it was 34 million in budget.

Guess I just felt that FB2 looked like a much smaller film in terms of set pieces and such and that's what struck me as incongruous with the reported budget.

Just checked Wikipedia (check the right hand column: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambo:_First_Blood_Part_II) and it said the budget was 25.5 million.

I reckon 44 million must include the advertising budget and Sly's pay packet haha.

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[–] dennisvest30 10 years ago

Rambo not expendale...