Titanic, The Harry Potter Saga, and Pirates of The Caribbean – These films are among the most successful films ever shown in cinemas. Do you know that these films are also among the topmost expensive films of all time?
1. Pirates of the Caribbean 3
The record holder in the ranking of the most expensive films of all time is the third part of Walt Disney’s production “Pirates of the Caribbean” . The part of the series devoured nearly $ 343 million due to weather-related interruptions. With box office earnings of $ 1.1 billion, Disney is now likely to take the high production costs calmly.
2. Cleopatra
The pompous epic, filmed in the 1960s and starring Elizabeth Taylor, cost $ 44 million at the time; today, adjusted for inflation, that would be around $ 340 million. The immense cost was caused by Liz Taylor’s repeated illness and the delayed completion of the script and set. 20th Century Fox was on the verge of financial ruin as a production company. It was not until 1966 that the costs could be offset. With a total of 446 million dollars in gross, the monumental film has meanwhile recorded an increase of 100 million dollars.
3. Titanic
The original budget for Titanic was $ 200 million. However, many actors fell ill after filming for hours in cold water. Some performers dropped out and three stuntmen had broken bones. And as if that wasn’t enough, a to this day unknown person poisoned the team’s food with the designer drug phencyclidine – many members of the team, including Cameron, ended up in the hospital. The cost of the film of $ 294.9 million seems ridiculously low, however, if you consider the gross profit of $ 3.2 billion.
4. Spiderman 3
The most expensive comic book adaptation to date with costs of almost 300 million dollars received only moderate reviews, but Spiderman 3 is likely to have met expectations from the audience. After all, the film made $ 1 billion at the box office.
5. Rapunzel – Respoiled
For the only animated film among the most expensive films, a completely new technique was developed that combined hand-drawn and computer-animated animations in a special way. The difficulties of the technical implementation and the resulting disputes in the team almost let the project fail and the costs rise to 281.7 million. The effort has paid off: Rapunzel grossed 641 million dollars worldwide.
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The sixth part of the successful Harry Potter series grossed almost 1 billion dollars worldwide at a cost of $ 275.3 million. The Half-Blood Prince is the most expensive of all Harry Potter films to date. The Chamber of Secrets, for example, raked in more than eight times the cost at $ 100 million.
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Following these top six most expensive films are Waterworkd (1995), Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (2006), Avatar (2009), The Hobbit (2012), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and John Carter – Between Two Worlds (2012).