This movie is very minimalistic. There are no expensive sceneries or costumes. There are few actors. Special effects are very few and well... nothing special. For the most of the movie we just have a woman walking around a house.
So why did it cost so mmuch???
Probably the expense of cast and crew out on that lake.
shareFilming in Vermont could be expensive; I know a lot of movies film in Canada, Georgia, Louisiana, etc because the cost is low but idk about filming costs in VT.
Also I know they built that house from scratch and tore it down after filming. That seems really dumb. I have lived in VT for 16 years and you can find houses EXACTLY like the one in the film everywhere. They could have rented from a homeowner and probably saved money.
Other than that, I'm at a loss! Actor salaries, maybe?
Maybe for one of the same reasons as to why "The Rockford Files" supposedly lost money. This is from the Wikipedia article for "The Rockford Files", Contents Part 5, titled End, "It was alleged that Rockford became very expensive to produce, mainly due to the location filming and use of high-end actors as guest stars. According to sources, NBC and Universal claimed the show was generating a deficit of several million dollars, a staggering amount for a nighttime show then, although Garner and his production team Cherokee Productions claimed the show turned a profit. Garner told a story to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show that the studio once paid a carpenter $700 to build a shipping crate for a shoot-out on a boat dock, though there were shipping crates on the dock. The script often called for Garner to damage his car, so the car could be sold, repaired, and repurchased for each episode." I'd say there was and still is quite a bit of criminality going on in Hollywood and the movie/TV industry in general(i.e. creative bookkeeping, inflated charges, kickbacks, illegal withholding of residuals etc.). "Your witness, Mr. Mason". Any thoughts?
shareProbably $20 million for Ford and another $20 million for Pfieffer. That's before they even shoot a single scene.
shareThere's no way Ford and Pfeiffer commanded $20 million apiece in 2000; if they earned $20 million combined they were overpaid, and I like them both... even more shocking to me is the fact the film earned nearly $300,000,000.
Other than James Remar and Diana Scarwid, there aren't really any other noteworthy actors, either. It's a decent movie, but both the cost and the earnings seem awfully high for the product.
What is so shocking about what it made? It's a horror film, and it was 2000, which usually always brought in SOME kind of profit. It had a well-known director attached to it. Both leads helped bring more credibility to the film. I'm sure word got around on the "twist" at the end as well; nowadays Rotten Tomatoes is what creates the word of mouth for people, but not in 2000.
As for the cost, surprised no one has actually brought this up; there were shots in this film that had a lot of computer effects (Sometimes just absolutely pointless); like when she was driving away with the boat attached the boat, they had the CGI zoom-in to make it look like a one-take, you then have the CGI scenes of the ghost.
Now obviously that didn't take up the entire budget (Budget doesn't really matter in this case, how much of the budget was used is what tells you the cost of the film, obviously). But CGI in 2000 cost more than it does today. If I remember reading correctly, it costs less than practical effects.
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Lmao @ the overpaid comment.
sharehttps://www.statisticbrain.com/harrison-ford-movie-career-salaries/
OP was correct, Harrison Ford made $20M for the movie.
Two words : blue /green screen for all the special effects. They were just starting to get introduced into cinema but it was in the early stages and it cost a lot. Then you have two A list actors that at the time commanded big salaries and finally location. They built the house inside out in Vermont and did all the location shots there, then the exact replica in the studio sound stage for all the night shots and special effects or more action sequences. That right there is a lot of money! Did you see that house? It's my dream home just the way it was architecture and location both!
shareTwo words : blue /green screen for all the special effects. They were just starting to get introduced into cinema but it was in the early stages and it cost a lot.
Zameckis combined the productions of 'Cast Away' and 'What Lies Beneath'. He needed a year for Tom Hanks to lose 60 pounds. That kept Hanks on salary, and obligated contractually.
I doubt if the 'Official' costs accurately reflect where the money was really spent. It was two different Studios, Dreamworks and Fox. Their budgets were astonishingly close, 100M and 90M. Cast Away, logically, cost a lot more. Location footage, CGI, Special Effects.
Looking at them now, I think WLB holds up a lot better. As far as Adult Suspense Thrillers, I can't think of a better modern take on the Genre.
Castaway will hold up forever. What Lies Beneath was a ghost story for women.
shareWell, according to IMDb, Harrison Ford got 20 millions for his role in this movie while Michelle Pfeiffer got 10 and a half millions! That's 30 millions and a half just to pay the two leads. So you have 70 millions for the CGI scenes through the movie and towards the end. Robert Zemeckis himself would have a nice paycheck as well. Building a house on that location and tearing it down afterwards. And paying the rest of the cast and crew members as well.
shareAnd then there's the costs on the top of this that you can't see on screen as a viewer. The fact that Zemeckis had to squeeze this movie in during the break in the shooting of Cast Away probably meant costs beyond just what went into making the film, ensuring everything required could be ready at exactly the right time, and being prepared to spend way over the odds if it looked like that wouldn't happen. The trivia for the movie also talks about them having to build the house again - and presumably the dock - on a sound stage for the nighttime scenes so that's probably double whatever it cost to construct the exterior house in Vermont. Then, again as stated in the trivia, the bathroom set was constructed in 6 different ways to allow for the shots needed and the the locations it needed to be to fit in with the schedule. Plus there are potential costs that aren't even associated with the movie that ultimately got made. Superman Returns reported budget of $270m included all the costs incurred by the shelving of plans for Superman Lives (something believed to be around $50m). I'm not saying there was anything like this involved in What Lies Beneath but more than not every dollar spent ends up on screen.
He's done her. He's done Mrs Lop-sided.