No-one knows how much movies cost to make anymore
Stephen Follows
No-one knows how much movies cost to make anymoreThe film industry has largely stopped sharing production budgets, leaving less than 4% of movies with any public data, and when tested, many of the figures we do have prove to be unreliable.
When people begin exploring data on films, one of the first things they look for is the production budget. It sounds simple enough: how much did the film cost to make? Knowing that number helps when estimating profit, comparing films of a similar scale, or tracking changes over time. But over the past few years, that common starting point has become ever harder to find. Even for major releases, the figure is often missing or inconsistent. So I decided to measure how bad the problem has become. And it’s pretty bad. What’s the issue?I’m going to go into more detail on budgets, available data, and the root causes, but I wanted to start with a single chart that frames the topic at hand. I collected data on 62,298 feature films released commercially since 2000, and I could only find budget figures for 10.7%. That’s not great, but it’s the trend which is more shocking. If we narrow it to films made in the past five years, that figure drops to just 3.3%
Let’s dig deeper and see what we can learn about the topic and why this is happening. What even is a production budget, anyway?When people talk about a film’s budget, they usually mean its production budget. This is the amount spent to make the film, not to distribute, release, or promote it. It covers everything from cast and crew salaries to sets, equipment, and post-production. The industry term is the “Negative Cost”, as it is the cost of producing the first version (in the pre-digital age, the first celluloid negative) of the movie. So far, so straightforward. But complications can arise from;
So while it’s pleasing to have a particular numerical value for a movie’s budget, it’s often far more complicated in the real world. Lies, damned lies, and movie budgetsThus far, I have assumed honesty on the part of all parties. This is an oversight which has to be redressed. When it comes to film budgets, “truth” is a flexible concept. Even when numbers are shared publicly, they rarely tell the full story. In the past, there have been a couple of times I have had access to real-world data with which to test the accuracy of publicly-delivered figures., In both cases, I found the public figures to be less than reliable. My study of 29 Hollywood blockbusters revealed that the average $100m+ Hollywood blockbuster actually costs $19 million more than is stated publicly (i.e. 12.5% more).
Similarly, when looking at UK indie films, only 70% of claimed budget figures were even broadly accurate.
From the outside, it’s hard to be sure when numbers are wrong. Maybe Wikipedia is right and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder really DID cost $20 million, meaning it had the same resources as Blink Twice, Gold, Uncut Gems, and the four-time Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front.
Producers may inflate figures to make their film seem more substantial or to justify a high price when selling it. Other times, the reverse is true, with filmmakers understating costs to appear resourceful or an underdog. In an industry of storytellers, it is perhaps to be expected that most public budget figures are part fact, part performance. For example, here is a chronology of how much the low-budget sci-fi Monsters (2010) is reported to have cost:
So while the current Box Office Mojo figure of “$500,000” is pleasingly precise and simple, it doesn’t really look all that good when you dig into the reporting of the film.
(I’m only using Monsters as one example - over the years, I have found many films where the public assumes that what a film costs does not stand up to even a little research). Where does movie budget data come from?There are only a few places where production budgets can originate. At one end are researchers and trade journalists, who track down and verify figures from reliable sources. Credible industry databases, such as The Numbers, will conduct their own research and look for figures they can confidently support. At the other end are public forums such as Reddit or Wikipedia, where anyone can add or change a number based on what they have read elsewhere or assume. Between the two are trade outlets, interviews, leaked memos, and the occasional press kit. This co-mingling of sources with varying reliability can yield quite different figures for the same movie.
What’s happening to data coverage?The coverage gap between reliable and unreliable data is not as wide as you might initially assume. The Numbers makes much of its information freely available online, and anyone can subscribe at a low cost for deeper access. Wikipedia, for all its flaws, is built from publicly accessible sources. But both reflect the same shrinking pool of information. So let’s focus on studio films for a moment - i.e. those most often studied and for which we would expect the most complete data. When researching the topic, I noted the reliability of the budget data source. If it came from what I would regard as a “professional source”, I flagged the figure as reliable (notwithstanding all the issues we’ve already discussed on a single budget figure). Both types of budget data have seen steep declines in recent years.
Wikipedia’s data coverage has a fascinating yet baffling pattern. Until around the mid-2010s, about a fifth of movies included budgetary information of some kind. But that cratered around 2013 and has only started to rebound in recent years.
Of the 27,766 films I found on Wikipedia (2000-25), only 16.4% listed some budget information. Why are budget figures getting harder to find?One of the biggest is the changing nature of the film press. The number of journalists covering the business side of the industry has dropped sharply, and those who remain are stretched thin across fewer outlets. With less time and space for investigative reporting, basic questions (like how much a film cost) often go unasked. Even when they are asked, the resulting stories are less likely to include concrete numbers or to challenge the official line. This thinning of the trade press removes one of the main routes by which financial details used to reach the public record. Alongside that, studios have become more guarded. In the past, budgets were routinely mentioned in press materials or interviews, whereas today such disclosures are much rarer. Streamers, meanwhile, have set new norms around secrecy, controlling data at every stage of production and release. They have no incentive to publicise costs, particularly when their success isn’t measured at the box office. At the other end of the market, the sharp rise in small-scale and independent productions adds to the opacity. These films are often made quickly, outside formal systems, and with little paperwork. They’re less likely to be tracked by trade journalists or data services and more prone to fuzzy or inflated figures. Finally, the shift toward direct-to-streaming releases, which has severed the traditional chain linking studios, distributors, and the press, and it’s easy to see why reliable budget data is drying up. The result is that, despite more films being made than ever before, we know less about what they cost. In preparing this research, I spoke to a number of industry folk in research and the press. Most didn’t want to go on the record but Bruce Nash at The Numbers said:
Where does this leave us?A film’s budget instinctively feels like a simple datapoint that we should be able to deduce. But we have seen that they are often inconsistent, incomplete, or deliberately shaped for effect. More worryingly, far fewer figures are making it into the public domain. Without reliable data, it becomes harder to track how the industry operates, what kinds of films are made efficiently, or how production practices are changing. It limits research into profitability, transparency, and trends that shape creative decisions. For studios, secrecy protects negotiation power and brand image. For filmmakers, it shields them from awkward comparisons. For analysts, investors, and audiences, it leaves a growing blind spot. NotesFor today’s analysis, I had a broad definition of a “studio film”, which included any feature film released by Amazon, Apple, Disney, Lionsgate, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, Universal, or Warner Bros. You’re currently a free subscriber to the site. For the full experience (including access to the data), upgrade your subscription.
© 2025 Stephen Follows
|
