Photo: Peter Wallis/Newspix/Getty Images)
One might expect that the most expensive movie ever made was also the most ambitious movie, something that really made the world become a tiny village discussing its story in unison. But no. Despite being the most expensive movie ever made, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) is still mostly known as the fourth pirates movie, nothing more. And if it didn’t have this money title, it would be quickly forgotten altogether, mashing it in with its predecessors and the upcoming successor in our collective memory.
The Disney corporation invested a whopping $378,000,000 into this inconsequential movie! Actually, the whole production cost totaled to $410,600,000, yet because the movie was partially filmed in London, and the United Kingdom has a credit scheme with entitles movies with expenditure larger than $34.1 million to claim back up to 20% of their production costs, it’s priced at $378 million.
You might think that Disney at least saved face with this movie, but that doesn’t even come into question as they earned more than double they’ve spent from it!
Most Expensive Movie Profits
As for the income, On Stranger Tides ranks at number 21 with $1,045,713,802 grossed worldwide, just in front of Jurassic Park (1993), and looking at the back of Rogue One (2016). The domestic gross of the movie was $241,071,802, and the rest came from the global audience. Subtracting the budget from the income makes for a profit of $667 million! More than enough to make the second most expensive film ever made twice. And that movie is – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), which had the budget of $300 million.
Most Expensive Movies Ever Made
Disney really dominates this movie-making category, as, besides the two mentioned Pirates of the Caribean movies, they’ve made four out of top five most expensive films ever. Unnoticeable animated flick Tangled (2010) coming at the number five, followed by what was supposed to be Disney’s pride and Taylor Kitsch’s launching pad John Carter (2012). The former was made for $260, and the later for $3.7 millions more. Disrupting Disney’s shopping spree is #3 Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), made for $279.9 million.
The list of most expensive films adjusted for inflation doesn’t change much, the first two spots are sovereignty claimed by the Pirates of the Caribbean, as is number 5, but Titanic (1997) and Spider-Man 3 (2007) share the third place with an adjusted budget of $298 million. With inflation counted in, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides spent $403,000,0000!
Photo: Mark Calleja/Newspix/Getty Images)
The fourth Pirates movie didn’t have Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly, and besides Penelope Cruz and Johhny Depp, all the other actors in the movie fall into the “I know them, but not their name” category. Still, it had a huge list item when it comes to salary, as it’s believed that Depp received $55 million for doing the role he can now probably do in his sleep. Even he admitted that his fee fell into the “stupid money” category.
The production staff went up to 895 people, and they were paid a total of $17.8 million.
Big budget films are usually heavy on the special effects, and the prices for them are not cheap, not by any means. In a film that has around 200 visual effects shots of five seconds each, every shot costs between $70,000 and $100,000 to produce. And On Stranger Tides had 1,112 shots of computer-generated imagery. But to top that off, another $15 millions or so has to be added for going the 3D route in the post-production.
Huge sets, filming on water, and several filming locations all added to the cost that really isn’t justified by the 2h 16min runtime.
Most Expensive Movie Reception.
Not even the epic theme song you’ll now be humming for the rest of the day couldn’t save this movie from mediocrity. Even the critics and the audience agreed on the triviality of the fourth movie, which is the lowest rated one of the franchise. It got 32% on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer, with the 54% audience score, while the IMDB crowd of 389,892 came to a rating of 6.7. Director’s Rob Marshall’s movie is average, yet it managed to make exceptional amounts of money. Still, forgettable is the word that is mostly associated with the movie.
A movie that blown the GDP of a smaller country shouldn’t rely so much on Johny Depp’s eye makeup and twirling, for the fourth time in a row, but it did. The movie that had the biggest budget ever shouldn’t lean on IMAX 3D experience as its main selling point, but it did.
A children’s movie in a beloved world, yes, but one that is a cold financial investment more than anything. One that will be erased from memory as soon as another title surpasses as the most expensive movie.
