The budget was only $35 Million!!!!
I bought this movie blind when it was first released on DVD and have loved it ever since. I went about 5 years without having watched it, until last night, and I was once again taken by the greatness of this film. Unlike so many movies today, it feels VERY theatrical, in that it has a big scope, very professionally done cinematography, amazing production design and costume, extensive location shootings, and overall excellent pacing.
Now considering all that, I was curious about what the budget was, and was SHOCKED when I read online it was only $35 Million. Nowadays, you always hear about how big action/adventure movies are being given budgets of $100 Million to sometimes as much as $250 Million. Now, and this is just my opinion, but a lot of these action/adventure movies of today have a totally different vibe and don't feel "theatrical" at all, yet they spend a crazy about of money on them. And I'm NOT just going to point my finger only at CGI (though it is an issue), but at the way these filmmakers of today make movies in general.
Sometimes a movie will have too much CGI and it feels like I'm watching someone playing a video game. A lot of movies today feel more like modern tv shows with the visual style and pacing. Sometimes a movie will be so long and so dense that I feel like I'm watching several episodes of a tv series back-to-back, which makes for an exhausting movie going experience. I have no problem with a long movie, even if it's 3 hours, but when they just try to cram in as much stuff as possibly and make it an overly fast paced movie, it hurts the experience.
Now I don't think all of today's movies of this genre are bad, just that a lot of them feel less organic and lack the theatricality of movies of old. The Count of Monte Cristo is an example of how a great a movie of this genre can be, and it only cost $35 Million.
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