It’s been an interesting week and a half for the “most expensive movie of all time” title.
Considering no one really reps War and Peace as the most expensive movie of all time (it is when adjusted for inflation, when it comes out to roughly $560,000,000 in 1968 money), here are the standings for non-inflated expensive movies:
1 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End -$300,000,000
2 Spider-Man 3 - $258,000,000
3 Quantum of Solace - $230,000,000
4 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest - $225,000,000
5 X-Men: The Last Stand -$210,000,000
6 King Kong - $207,000,000
7 Superman Returns - $204,000,000
8 The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - $200,000,000
Spider-Man 2- $200,000,000
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines - $200,000,000
Titanic - $200,000,0009 Indiana Jones 4 - $185,000,000
The Dark Knight - $185,000,000
The Golden Compass - $180,000,000
The Chronicles of Narnia - $180,000,000
Wall-E - $180,000,00010 Evan Almighty - $175,000,000
Troy - $175,000,000
Waterworld - $175,000,000
So in recent memory, can you think of the two movies rumored to be the new top-title holders? If you guessed Avatar, I might believe you, but if you guessed Tron 2, well, that seems foolish. Depending on who you read, you might be right about both…
Time Magazine started the “most expensive” trend when they reported that James Cameron’s Avatar was going to come in with a budget in excess of $300 million dollars, giving James Cameron his second MostExpensiveMovie by an easy margin of “excess.”
Too bad Time amended the article with: “The original version of this story misstated the cost of the film Avatar as being in excess of $300 million. The correct figure is in excess of $200 million.”
James Cameron? Off the hook.
Though now a report by the Vancouver Sun on the Tron sequel that is currently gearing up to shoot in Canadaland suggests that the visual effects display piece will be the new MostExpensiveMovie winner:
Vancouver post-production units are salivating at the prospects presented by the Disney remake of Tron, which carries a whopping $300 million budget and opportunities aplenty for effects and digital polish. The 1982 version of the film starring Jeff Bridges blazed new trails in computer graphics and you can bet Tron 2.0 will push much further down the pixel path.
Another typo? Some sort of distorted exchange rate fuck up between Canadian dollars and American?
No word yet on if this was just inaccurate reporting, another typo, or if Disney really is willing to make a TRON sequel the most expensive movie ever. No pressure with that title…
