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> 6. Tricky Hollywood Accounting To film _Matrix Reloaded_, they built a fake freeway on the Alameda naval base in San Francisco. I drove on it (as an extra in
by glenra 15y ago
> 6. Tricky Hollywood Accounting
To film _Matrix Reloaded_, they built a fake freeway on the Alameda naval base in San Francisco. I drove on it (as an extra in the movie); it was really really cool. The company originally thought of keeping this set around for a while to use in driving scenes for other film projects, but they ended up destroying it instead. Why? Because the film was likely to be profitable! A film set that's only used for one movie and then destroyed can obviously be deducted (as a necessary expense) from the profits of that movie, whereas a film set that's reused for several films can't. So this "tricky accounting" can have the effect of artificially inflating production costs (as well as distribution costs).
- MaxGabriel 15y agoOk, so I get that a film studio would be willing to charge expenses like Lucas' promotion of Return of the Jedi 3D to their accounts, because its an investment for future gross profits (but the 'investment' doesn't cost anything, because if they didn't make that 'investment' the money would go to paying net-profit-share actors instead). But how is it advantageous to them to completely waste money on destroying the freeway? The only way I can see this benefiting them is that lie in their accounting and write down the freeway expense as much more than it actually cost.
- glenra 15y agoSuppose you use the same freeway set for exactly two films: (1) the big expensive sequel _Matrix Reloaded_ (2) some cheap indie zombie film (being on an entirely empty freeway in the middle of the day is kind of creepy all by itself) ...and then the set has to be destroyed - a storm knocks it down or the land owners decide they want the space back for some other use. One rational accounting method would be to split the cost evenly between films (or perhaps you could divide it based on how many hours/days of filming was done in that location.) But film #1 (a) made a profit, (b) owes percentages of the profit to people who made the first film. Film #2 lost money and was made by people with less negotiating power than Keanu Reeves, so having it lose more money doesn't benefit the studio. Given this simple case, you'd want to allocate as much of the expense as possible to the first film, leading to court battles over exactly how the cost should be allocated. Was this set used for more hours for film #1? Was it more crucial to the plot for that film? And okay, that might still be manageable. But what doesn't work is to leave the number of films to be shot there open-ended. If the freeway set stays up, the lawyers representing Keanu Reeves can reasonably argue that you intend to make one hundred films there, so the _Matrix Reloaded_ production should only get dinged for 1% of the cost rather than all of it or half of it.
- mhb 15y agoI thought they could make films lose arbitrary amounts of money by charging whatever they want to their captive distribution arms.
- njharman 15y ago> completely waste money Money isn't wasted, someone earns it. The studio's want their subsidiary "Movie Construction, Ltd" earn that money rather than anyone else.
- gallerytungsten 15y agoFellini used to cleverly make use of sets from other productions, thus reducing his costs. This strategy points out that the 6 reasons mentioned in the article are simply damage. Be like Fellini and rout around the damage.
- jrockway 15y agoOn the plus side, destroying that set freed up that location for MythBusters to shoot approximately every other episode. And watching Adam and Jamie accidentally drive remote controlled cars into the Bay is much better than any fake freeway in a Matrix sequel.
- glenra 15y agoRight, most car myths get tested there. It's also the usual place you see Adam zipping around on his Segway.