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Full $71M breakdown for The Village by M. Night Shyamalan (2003) [pdf]
- circularfoyers 3y agoIs there any context to this document? Was this just leaked or previously leaked, where was it originally posted, etc?
- joshspankit 3y agoDoesn’t help much, but one clue is WordPress shows the pdf was uploaded “/2012/10/“
- mcapodici 3y agoBased on that I conjecture that it was going to be included in this post: https://wlmager.com/why-i-havent-used-crowdfunding-to-pay-for-my-next-film-yet/ https://wlmager.com/why-i-havent-used-crowdfunding-to-pay-fo... For all blog posts, use this link: https://wlmager.com/?s=a https://wlmager.com/?s=a
- joshspankit 3y agoFound it! http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/hollywood-numbers http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/hollywood-n... (Feb 27, 2006) And they do have budget documents for other films
- mavhc 3y agoDon't see a related post on the blog pages https://wlmager.com/author/wlmager/page/3/ https://wlmager.com/author/wlmager/page/3/
- AceyMan 3y agoI remember these sheets (or the same type artifact) in a newstand magazine fifteen years ago or so; I read it in Wired, Esquire or some similar publication, iirc.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- nathan-wailes 3y agoDoes anyone know where I can find more film budgets broken down in detail like this?
- qubex 3y agoThis film gets bashed often but I remember seeing it in the cinema when it was released and I absolutely adored it, and still do. I’ve ’inflicted’ it on several friends and acquaintances — and keep in mind I’m no M. Night Shyamalan fan having never seen Unbrekable and having walked out of the cinema midway through The Last Airbender that I hold to be one of the worst films ever. Anyway back to The Village: its scenery and ambiance were absolutely perfect. The twist was pure genius.
- eterm 3y agoThe film didn't work for me, because I didn't realise the "twist" was supposed to be a twist. I had assumed it from the start and was expecting the reverse to be the twist.
- geek_at 3y agoIt's one of my favorite movies. I love movies or books that get me thinking "what the hell is going on" until in the end there's a twist where it now all makes sense. Another movie like this is "Big Fish"
- Grazester 3y agoThere wasn't a twist in Big Fish.
- matt-attack 3y agoThe slo mo shot still gives me chills.
- 3y ago
- zbendefy 3y agoIt's interesting that according to wikipedia its budget was $60M. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)#Produc... This breakdown is about $71M, and it doesn't even account for reshoots in 2004 ~april. Which one is the more accurate? Are all publicly reported budgets this different? Or is there something in this report that is not counted there?
- Joeboy 3y agoI think the public "budget" number is best considered as part of the film's publicity. It might reflect reality, it might not. Some films exaggerate their production budgets to make them seem like good value to buyers, some understate them for "plucky outsider" cred.
- Keyframe 3y agoShyamalan got good out of it. Usually it's ~5% of the budget for director, but he did write it as well and then some. Hefty fee. Looking through the budget I guess only surprise would be music composer at 4x Deakins' fee; That's interesting. Always weird to see Hollywood sheets like that, they're so inflated in some ways. For example, 50k for someone to run a generator on-set for three months and then also 30k for same generator rental. Or, matte shots/plates 50k apiece, 50k wrap party allowance, DI at 350k (jesus, yet whole of foley was 112k), titles at 160k, 2 AVID machines rental at 270k (even then one could've bought several times over several full systems for that), 20k for MIDI file transfer :P And all that's in 2003 money.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoThose costs remind me of the cost for dealing with emergency water damage. They would be extraordinarily cheaper if they were working nonstop, but the asks are so intermittent they have to charge enough to maintain availability of the service. This becomes especially true and high cost-of-living areas.
- germinalphrase 3y agoGenerators on film sets aren’t the type of thing you power your house with in an outage; they are a truck sized, high power piece of specialist equipment. Running one of those generators safely with zero downtime is absolutely a job. People think of movie sets as dangerous places due to stunts, fire and explosions. I was always weary of the electricity.
- simple10 3y agoI worked on a few films back in college. It's a huge deal if the generator goes down. It completely stops production, especially when shooting at night with giant lights. It's not possible to run most productions off of the normal power grid due to the voltage and amp requirements of the lights. At least that was the case before LEDs. I'm not sure what the large studio production lights are using these days.
- 3y ago
- bilsbie 3y agoI wonder why no one has tried setting up a village like in the movie? With all the ills of society it seems worth a try.
- wingspar 3y agoIf they did, we wouldn’t know…
- krsrhe 3y agoLots of people have. From Amish to communes to cults.
- gbacon 3y agoAre you from the Towns?
- getlawgdon 3y agoWe're currently in it.
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoBecause then how would you comment on HN all day?
- m3kw9 3y agoThat heck of a list of 71mil of economic activities. I keep seeing these “fringes” fees, what are these?
- tauchunfall 3y agolooks like "fringes" are what we call in German TV and ad productions "markup". >Fringes can track the value of benefits or fees that are required above and beyond the raw cost of labor or materials. Fringe benefits could include employment taxes, fees for pension & welfare programs, or daily charges for a given resource. They might also include allowances for holiday or sick leave funds. >Fringes can also be used to track things like sales tax on materials. >Many employment benefits have a limit or cap for how much total compensation an employee can make before the Fringe benefit is cut off in a given project. via: https://mmb-docs.ep.com/Setup/fringes.html https://mmb-docs.ep.com/Setup/fringes.html
- woobar 3y agoMostly taxes on wages paid as a part of making this movies. FICA - employer part of payroll taxes FICA/Medi - employer part of Medicare insurance FUI/SUI - federal/state unemployment insurance
- mihaic 3y agoPretty fascinating to see how the actor pays don't match what I was expecting, nor how expensive the actual film stock and its processing was (380k). Do anyone know if there's more of these breakdowns publicly available?
- lxmorj 3y agoFirm believer that he stole the entire thing from the book Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
- allen3 3y agoA few things to note: this isn't the budget that Disney ended up having. This doesn't include Prints & Advertising. I'm assuming the picture also had a state tax credit for filming in NY and Penn. So the overall budget would probably be 10-15 million dollars less than itemized. It also looks like N.Night had a 3 picture deal at Disney.
- wyldfire 3y agoWow - Howard's character is arguably more important to the story than Phoenix's. Was he that big of a draw back then to be able to demand so much more pay? Well - he had probably been in "Gladiator" just prior, so I guess he was a hot commodity. It looks like William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, Brendan Gleeson all got paid pretty well. The movie made money despite not finding favor with critics. > Ebert named the film the tenth worst film of 2004 and subsequently put it on his "Most Hated" list. I dunno, I enjoyed it. I'm a simple man.
- bazoom42 3y agoActors get paid for their ability to draw an audience, which largely depends on the success of their previous work. Howard was a nobody, but probaly got paid a lot better for her next movie, since this movie was a success.
- karma_fountain 3y agoThis was Bryce Dallas Howard's first film so it was her big break, before that she had only done theater. Hopefully she got a percentage of the profit and some extra money for promoting the film. Edit: Also worth noting that her father is Ron Howard so she probably didn't need the money.
- cm2187 3y agoOn the other hand he also put Usual Suspects on that list (he argues the plot is too complicated). Can't disagree more.
- getlawgdon 3y agoI enjoyed it also. Memorable and unique.
- woobar 3y agoIt was also one of the first movies for Jesse Eisenberg, but I cannot find his character (Jamison) in the list. I wonder if it was renamed during shooting. There is a small part for Joseph ($8K total), but there is no character with this name in the final cast.
- 3y ago
- wmf 3y agoInteresting to see that Shyamalan was paid $300K to write, $200K to direct, and $3M to produce the movie.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- danpalmer 3y agoAnd 7.2m for the story rights, the first line item.
- joshspankit 3y agoAm I reading this right that M. Night got over 10M (and possibly the most out of anyone) because of the 7.5M story rights/writing on top of the 3M for directing?
- wmf 3y agoThe auteur theory at work.
- wmf 3y agoWhoops, somehow I misread that as $7,200. Don't tell the "idea guys" about this!
- mrkstu 3y agoI'm assuming it was as Director that he made most of his back end money.
- raverbashing 3y agoI wonder if those fees are based on a "fixed fees" schedule (these ones above, not the script one)
- Brajeshwar 3y ago[Spoiler Alert] I was at a "special invite." I remember this movie well because many of India's Bollywood whos-who were there. When the film ended, I came out and kept thinking, I wish the movie ended before the revelation, stayed on the cliffhanger, and didn't expose that the Village was "staged." The ending made me feel like, "Duh! Was it all for nothing?"
- siva7 3y agoThanks for spoiling the end.
- speed_spread 3y agoYou're being sarcastic but you shouldn't. The plot twist is all there is to the movie, so that reveal saved you 2 hours of your life.
- ajcp 3y agoThe movie has been out for 21 years now. It's not a spoiler, you're just being reminded how much you've been passed by.
- Brian_K_White 3y agoI never saw it.
- unwind 3y agoSometimes new people are added to the world and it can take a while to catch up, though.
- mnsc 3y agoThat is true so I hope you you never mention anything about "blowing up the death star" or you might spoil that as well.
- 3y ago
- prakhar897 3y agoPayments to producers of the film looks like this: MNight - 7.2M$ + 0.3M$ + 3M$ Sam Mercer - 850k$ Scott Rudin - 3M$ Aren't producers the one investing in the movie. Why are they getting paid then, How does this work? Edit: Other expenses like travel etc are also covered by the company which adds another 1M$ approx [ex: 41.23]
- bazoom42 3y agoProducer and executive producer are completely differet roles despite similar sounding names. Executive producer is a credit for someone who have helped secure funding. Sometimes high-profile actors may have an executive producer credit. Producer is like project manager for the movie.
- wmf 3y agoAFAIK the executive producers gather funding and the producers actually make the movie.
- wizardforhire 3y agoExecutive producers are investors. Line producers are managers Producers are ceos or presidents.
- cbsmith 3y agoIn reality, these lines are a lot blurrier. Executive producers usually are investors, but they're not necessarily the primary investors. Definitionally, they're responsible for the financing of the film. Producers on the other hand, are, in theory responsible for managing expenditure of the investment (making the film), very much like a CEO/President as you describe.
- lotsofpulp 3y agoI would have thought producer is akin to a board of directors, and director is akin to CEO.
- stigz 3y agoThis is neat. I take it these these accounting breakdowns for films are hard to come by? Would love to see more for some of my favorite films.
- Joeboy 3y agoThis is the one people always cite when talking about big budget film breakdowns. I presume because it's the only one that's out there. Edit: Apparently there's a leaked budget for The Interview out there. https://www.scribd.com/document/352522776/The-Interview-Budget-Final-10-10-13-pdf https://www.scribd.com/document/352522776/The-Interview-Budg...
- cfr2023 3y agoYou and me both!
- gniv 3y agoA surprising tidbit: Key make-up and hair each made 72.5k, but there was a make-up and hair designer, who made 105k.
- ojosilva 3y agoPhotocopier rental $20k!
- ashwinne 3y agoI'd assume it is an office copier that can produce lots of copies of scripts, receipts, invoices, signs for the sets etc. they might need all through the day. And by renting, if it breaks down they get an immediate replacement from the rental company (at zero cost) I guess. So don't need to worry about repair downtime.
- pavlov 3y agoIs it surprising? It’s the same for costumes, sets, visual effects, and many other creative aspects of the production: there’s a lead designer / supervisor who is in charge of the overall look and concept, and then individual artists who implement the look.
- gniv 3y agoYes, I don't know why I was surprised about make-up in particular. I guess it shows my biases.
- pavlov 3y agoMake-up and hair seem quite critical to the atmosphere and look of a movie like The Village which is set in an ambiguous time and place. I think this was probably an interesting project for the make-up designer, and IMO he/she deserved the $105k fee.
- throwup238 3y ago
- mkl 3y agoThe original title "The Woods" is down in the footer. Apparently it was changed during production to avoid a clash with another film: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)#Production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Village_(2004_film)#Produc...
- entropy47 3y agoThe original title is, in fact, the very first thing in the document. Twice!
- fractallyte 3y agoIt was this film (The Woods, 2006): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380066/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380066/ ...which was actually a rather cool movie! Anything with Bruce Campbell and Patricia Clarkson piques my interest.
- JohnMakin 3y ago10% of the budget was for story rights? the story was the worst part of that movie.
- pawelmurias 3y agoIt's a money making project. I assume it would be easy to have the mainstream movies have "better" stories but they are money making not artistic endeavours.
- mkl 3y ago10% of the budget was to be able to say "M. Night Shyamalan wrote this", which guaranteed a healthy profit in 2004 no matter what the story was.
- blackoil 3y agoYeah, it follows The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs and The Village itself made >250 million on this 72 million budget.
- huytersd 3y agoCompletely disagree. I didn’t really see the twist coming so I enjoyed the story.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- gniv 3y agoI expected the high fees for actors/director/writer, but the composer fee was surprising (page 69). And the movie was nominated for Oscars for original score (and nothing else)! Interesting decision to hire that composer, presumably made by MNS.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ycdxvjp 3y agoVFX is 250K for 5 shots. Total VFX budget is 500K. And total post production is 10 Mil. Or ~14% of the whole budget. These days I bet it's probably double or triple that.
- overvale 3y agoShows how much things have changed. These days it would likely be ~14% of the entire budget, not just post. And there would be 1,000 VFX shots.
- adastra22 3y agoSPOILER well The Village benefits from the fact that the monsters were in fact just the other characters in rubber masks. Practical effects would have been entirely accurate anyway, no VFX required. I expect that money was mostly spent on color correction and removing phone lines and such.
- dcanelhas 3y agoVFX was Matte shots and wire removal, according to the doc.
- matt-attack 3y agoAnd color correction is listed as its own line item (see “DI”).