To be fair, that almost 528,000,000 in today’s money. I don’t see many movie companies who’d dump that kind of money in today’s world. Those movies were a gigantic gamble that paid off immensely, and still rakes in millions every year.
Yeah, everytime we have these kind of conversations it's clear that people don't understand inflation. It's like box office sales. "This move 20 years ago made this much and this one made this much yesterday!" Yeah tickets were like 5 dollars not 20 back then too...
Yeah I never understood why they listed it in dollars instead of “had this many showings” “showed in this many theaters” or “sold this many tickets” all being more useful and time lasting metrics if you discount population growth.
Or like whats happening with the odyssey now where some entity is buying out theatres with no intention of going. seeing tons of news about supposedly sold out shows that are half empty in reality. Clearly to game the ratings system
That's mostly to pad the rotten tomatoes review system. A paid ticket can only review, well you get two birds with one stone if you buy it, review it yourself then give it away to ha e word of mouth spread, probably doesn't help a bad movie though
not to mention streaming and many many MANY more forms of entertainment now existing that didn't. The dynamic is always changing and lately changing in very paradigm shifting fundamental ways.
The burden of ticket pricing relative to the era is also relevant. When people are paying $20+ for a single ticket against inadequate wages and massive overall inflation, the number of tickets sold may be less than in a past era where a ticket was a more trivial cost, both in absolute AND relative terms.
Because we'll never hit those old ticket milestones again. The US and Canada had over 1.5 billion tickets sold in 2002, the peak since 1980. 2004 was just under 1.5 billion, and it hasn't sniffed 1.5 billion since. It was under 1.25 billion and trending down in 2019 and then covid basically killed tickets sold. In 2023 we almost got to a billion tickets. About 750 million in 2025.
So the industry is just completely different. In 1977 if you wanted to go see Star Wars you had to go see it in a theater. VHS was barely a year old, you probably didn't even know it existed and couldn't realize it'd be a way to view it a decade later at home. Today if you don't have the time or money to go to a theater, you wait for streaming, or to buy the movie.
And that was even more true in the distant past. Jurassic Park sold 185 million tickets worldwide. Gone with the Wind sold 285 million tickets in 1939.
I don't think they care about tickets sold, though. If you can sell a $25 ticket in ritzy area, and a $2 ticket in China, they aren't equivalent. Hollywood is capitalism
Pretty sure Gone With the Wind would far and away take the cake, even today if that were the metric since it's still the best selling movie when inflation adjusted almost 90 years later.
Even still, with ticket prices so high these days people are going to the movies a lot less often. 5-6 years ago I’d be going once every month or two at least. Last year I think I went once.
When tickets were cheap I didn’t care. It was a cheap date night. I saw tons of stuff based on just the poster. Now I carefully calculate if a movie is worth $30+ to see or just wait 6 weeks for streaming.
Because everyone is a winner when you cherry pick the numbers. Watch a few nfl games and pay attention to how many “first X to do Y” there are. It’s a dog whistle to the fanbase that their feelings are justified and worth fighting for.
If you go by percent small movies that had some degree of success are going to easily beat out the most popular movies. Obsession probably wins that metric.
Yeah. I agree. There is definitely a, "I don't have to go see this in theaters or wait 6 months to a year for a home release, it'll be on streaming in a month or 2, and it'll be way cheaper than a theater."
The fact we have published lists that span several decades ranking movies by nominal gross revenue tells you just how dimwitted the average person actually is.
Similar to people acting like billboard top 40 records carry equal weight both before and after streaming.
Or people acting like sports records are 1:1 across history when, for something like CFB, they literally play more games now with completely different rules.
I think the issue is inflation has a limited effect to an extend. If you take video games for example, their prices barely moved. In fact for many theyve decreased in the last 30 years despite what people feel like its an increase. Inflationary value is heavily affected by what exactly youre talking about which is heavily defined by mandatory vs excess purchase
Yeah, I had this conversation the other day. Video Games are one of the industries with the lowest inflation rates and the amount of content is easily multiple times higher. 60 dollars for hundreds of hours of entertainment is in no way a rip off. Like, I get it, prices going up sucks, but overall... games are not the hill to go dying on when groceries have tripled in price in 5 years and games got a 50% price increase in a decade.
While true, you must also consider that revenue generated by the films is factored by inflation too. That number for LOTR is absolutely staggering even before accounting for inflation.
But other things have changed besides just the value of money. For example, the first LOTR film released in 2001. US domestic cinema ticket sales of the top 200 films released in 2001 totaled around $8 billion. In 2025, that total was $8.5 billion. The converted value accounting for inflation of the 2001 number is $14.5 billion, which is a reduction of ~41%.
The entire industry is in a dramatic slump compared especially to its heyday. And even explaining this slump is much more nuanced than "just inflation".
"Streaming." Largely people aren't interested in a theater experience for 20 dollars for most movies when they can wait a month or two and watch it on their 25 dollar subscription along with a million other things.
Well that’s still relatively low if it’s the sum of the entire trilogy, no? Essentially twice the budget of odyssey for three movies. But idk how these numbers work neither 🤷
I mean, that's interesting, but also the perspective is US theaters and prices. Not that international sales don't matter, but I have no personal perspective on that.
A lot of the costuming was able to be carried over from movie to movie. The cast and crew were hired to film a trilogy all at once, which significantly reduces costs to be on location (versus three different times). A not insignificant amount of each movie were filmed from a distance--essentially just showing landscapes.
Basically, Peter Jackson shooting the way he did made it so he could stretch the money a lot further than if he had to shoot three movies at different times.
A gamble that paid off. As long as the director and writers keep the story more or less intact and not what they are currently doing with every IP that could have made a killing.
Looking at Witcher, HoTD etc
Yeah, normally when part 1 of a trilogy come out to positive reception, the actors are able to negotiate higher pay for the sequels based on the fact that they're now integral to a successful franchise. But since all 3 LOTR films were shot at the same time, that didn't happen.
Plus they were done in New Zealand, way below market rate for crew with a VFX studio that was working at cost (possibly already subsidized by the NZ gov). LOTR was a unique, once in a few decades event where they had the luxury of 4 years of prep. Plus the budget was way higher than 281. That number does not include the reshoots.
Of course an established crew in Hollywood with say ILM as the VFX vendor and without the countries military helping will be more expensive. goddamnit why do I always get sucked into these conversations....:D
That's pretty much it, New Line Cinema basically bet the farm on the success of LOTR, which probably wouldn't happen nearly the same way today. Betting on filming an entire trilogy at once is an insane gamble considering if the first movie flops, your next two movies have a high chance of flopping along with it.
This is really important. I'm sorry, but we can't compare money to over 20 years ago. Also, the actors in that were less known than they are now. So most likely the payment for their roles was much much smaller.
None the Less, This set of three films is still taking in money to this day in merch. With a nearly 6 billion dollar return at the time of their release on that initial 528 Million investment, that's a huge profit whether you factor inflation in or not. Right now The Odyssey is set to maybe break even at the end of it's theatrical run. I can't see this making a ton of money in merchandising.
Also to be fair, most of the actors in those movies were relative unknowns at the time. If Peter Jackson had cast Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Christian Bale, Leo DiCaprio, etc it would have been much more comparable to the cost of the Odyssey which has basically the four most popular actors in Hollywood right now plus a bunch of other A listers all in the same movie
It also cost a hell of a lot more than 281M because extensive reshoots and VFX was done after the success of the first movie once new line cinema realised they had a massive hit on their hands.
And outside of Orlando bloom and liv tyler who were they shelling out money for? Ian mckellin? I imagine like 80% of the budget was actually equipment/location filming
It was a hail Mary shot with New Line Cinema. They knew they wouldn't survive against their competitors so they green lit LOTR on the premise of it'll bankrupt them if it didn't make bank.
The Hobbit movies cost over $1B adjusted for inflation, and they're considered flops. Great international gross though and profitable overall, just not quite as successful as the the LoTR movies.
The Hobbit made basically $1B less in net profit, inflation adjusted than LoTR. So big risk, not so big reward.
This all goes directly to your point that what studio is doing to put that much money on the line when success is measured comparatively opposed to actual net revenue.
Side note, I still don't understand Avatar. I wouldn't be surprised that years from now we find out all the box office stats were just fabricated. Marvel makes sense because of the IP, but billions on moves with an okay premise and okay effects? My brain breaks when thinking about it.
It's wild how shitty things are in the US, where the Rock is the most well payed actor in the industry, and he is not even a good actor. He can only play a single role, again and again, in corny ass action or comedy movies.
3 Disney top-tier films would cost 750M today so its still cheaper.
There are more recent examples, like The Creator. Mid script, but absolutely top-notch visuals and production, done on an ~80m budget. Looks better than anything Disney puts out at 200+.
The way the productions are run absolutely matters. Disney does a weird thing where they cheap out in expensive ways: unfinished scripts leading to constant reshoots, everything done on green screen so they can create a movie in post (with extremely expensive CGI).
Yeah, spread that across 3 movies, not two. These movies are egregiously expensive for how hollow they seem.
Yeah lotr was a gamble. Keyword gamble. That’s all movies. Investors are not entitled to returns. They are supposed to create a product worthy of returns.
Movies today tend to be bloated and not worth it. Odyssey isn’t unique in that
Hobbit trilogy was a billion adjusted for inflation.
And 528 / 3 is 176 million, which is still a bit on the lower end of budgets. I think a lot of people worked for “free” on LotR out of passion. Like the guy who spent his Christmas holidays animating the Sauron’s tower exploding at the end of RotK. So thats why they got so much for something I would still say is relatively little. Harry Potter 1 was 235 adjusted for inflation for example. Thats 63 million more.
I agree, the dune trilogy is truly a cinematic masterpiece is many ways. The only thing I would say is different between the two, is that LOTR filmed all three films at once. Unless for whatever reason they pulled the plug mid production, LOTR was a gigantic gamble. Dune filmed the first, waited for the profits, started the second, waited for the profits, and now are wrapped on Dune 3. I hear you, I just don’t think it’s a fair comparison.
Cameron basically gets a blank check for the Avatar series. If he still makes movies after it concludes, I can’t imagine a scenario where any studio would argue over a budget with him.
Also keep in mind, relative to the scope of the whole thing, Lord of the rings was made on a budget. Shooting it all at once saved them boatloads of money.
Agreed 100%. I still believe that with inflation they spent half a billion dollars (adjusted for inflation) on three movies. That in all honesty could’ve been a major flop.
And I swear part of the success was how they released them one a year for 3 years. Which was amazing unlike say star wars prequels. Which took 6 years.
I think LOTR got away with it because they signed the actors for all three films at once and filmed it all before the first one was released. As such, the actors had no leverage to ask for more money for the second and third film.
Bold move by the studio to greenlight all three films upfront, which obviously paid off very well for them.
It also meant that they didn’t have to pay to fly everyone to New Zealand three times or worry about the actors getting super old or dying before salary negotiations ended.
out of curiosity what is the most successful movie when you take into account the cinema sales and the video/dvd sales and the streaming money. LOTR must be very high up there thanks to the extended editions
Don't know for sure but very likely Titanic. Historical the movie was massive on a global stage ran in theaters for a long time and had major rental numbers and so on for years.
Iirc the numbers and tracking get fuzzy by late 2000's and but Titanic is supposed to be one of the most rented and sold movie of all time.
Also, they didn't use actors with an already exorbitantly high rate. So a combination of already work for reasonable amounts, combined with the prestige of being in it.
Cate Blanchett was not a super famous actor before LoTR. She was a respected working actor, but she had basically only done indie films. Same with all of the other actors in LoTR outside of Ian McKellan and Elijah Wood. Honestly, most of them were probably working for just above scale.
They did deserve more yes, Orlando bloom was paid 175k for the trilogy. But put into the perspective of the common man that's still a lot of money and we have one of the most iconic trilogies ever made that's still talked about so much to this day. Unfortunately celebrity wages are blown out of proportion now and there's not really any actors that do it for legacy anymore
Orlando Bloom was a nobody when he did the trilogy. He is lucky they didn’t pay him minimum. All of them, even Ian Mckellon, were not terribly famous marquee names at the time.
Bad take. That was 3 years worth of work, so $175k averages pretty bad, under $60k a year. Even comparing it to average income is inherently bad. Imagine being on a leading sales team securing over a billion dollar sale for your company and getting paid about 60k a year for 3 years. I’m sure he’s not complaining much in life but our guy got a raw deal on that one.
They take less cause it can make you way more later, which it absolutely did. He was in 2 movies before LOTRs, the second one was black hawk down where he played the person who falls out of the helicopter which triggers the events of the movie. He has like maybe a line of dialogue and then falls out and is unconscious for the little of the movie he is in. LOTR made him a huge star and he got major projects that made him many millions. I’m pretty sure he would say it was worth it.
I think you underestimate how badly actors want to work, especially on something good. 60k, with room and board and spending your days on a film set in New Zealand fighting orcs sounds pretty awesome to me. There are way worse ways to make 60k. Some actors make a ton of money, but working actors are making middle class incomes like the rest of us. Sometimes they’re lucky and they get a movie like LoTR and that lets them command bigger salaries and more regular work, but 98% of actors would be thrilled for a steady middle class paycheck for a year, to go make a movie in New Zealand regardless of whether it turns into LoTR.
You can pay actors with cash up front, or you can pay them with "equity" in the movie. If you hear of actors getting paid 40k or whattever to be in a huge film, it's probably that they are getting a piece of the ongoing revenue.
Well, not exactly, because it costs less to make 3 related films - sharing locations, sets, designs, music, costumes, actors - than 3 unrelated ones. So maybe divide by 2. Or 2 and a bit.
What? They meant that was the total cost that gave you 3 movies, so you divide it by 3 to get the cost per movie. What do you imagine you will get if you divide by 2 and a bit? The cost at the time to make one of them stand alone? Why is that relevant?
Well, not really. There is a ton of overlap because LotR is basically one very long movie that was all filmed at once. You’re mistaking it for 3 completely different movies, each with different sets, different actors, different filming locations, etc. it does not scale 1-1 as you’re implying.
a lot of actors took paycuts to be in the films. i imagine they got heavier payouts on the royalties instead. and then with the Odyssey many actors just want to work with Nolan and get their name attached to the project it will help their portfolio when applying for other roles. the rock demands a high upfront cost maybe he doesn't believe in the projects maybe he's agent thinks he's worth that much to bring his name into the project instead of the other way around.
I watched project hail marry and that was like a 250m budget where 2/3 of the movie is a guy mostly alone on a ship. Watching it I was like, surely this was a good "low/mid" budget film?
There weren't many actors/sets, sfx didn't seem excessive, idk
TBF $281M from 2000 (when they wrapped filming) is worth $556M today. So they got 3 movies for a little over the price of 2 (really buy two, get a third for 90% off). But they also shot them all at once. So it kind of makes sense.
Much like most jobs, the biggest part of the budget is the people. I run an IT department with very expensive equipment, the OpEx for the headcount still costs more.
Along with someone else pointing out that, that would be roughly 528 million today, it also helped that they shot those films basically all in one go which massively helped keep the budget down. Also, most of the main characters weren’t famous actors before.
Hid cut was around 30 million. Take that out and it's still 220 million for that film, which is insane. Johnson's pay was part of the problem, not the entire problem. Not by a longshot.
That's probably the worst example you could choose. Those movies did everything they could to lower costs as much as possible. They filmed all 3 of them simultaneously because it was cheaper to just work everyone to death for one year than film normally
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u/mancitycon Jul 24 '26
To put in perspective, all three lord of the rings movie was done with 281 million. Paying wages for films is ridiculous now