Including advertising, post production and everything else what is the actual cost of this film? I've read a few different estimates that range from 200 million to as much as 400 million?

-- Wayne Cadwallader (waynecad@erols.com), January 03, 1998

Answers

The most quoted and reputable cost is just under $200 million, plus interest. Note that this is the production cost: marketing the film, making the thousands of release prints, future residuals to be paid-out to the actors, and the cost of building a brand-new studio (Fox Studios Baja) is NOT included.

-- Thomas M. Terashima (tom@nucleus.com), January 06, 1998.

The rule-of-thumb about calculating the break-even point of a movie is 2 to 2.5 times the production cost.

For Titanic, that would work out to about $400 to $500 million (US), including international box office, television broadcast rights (which were bought by NBC), video rentals and sales.

Eventually, the film will make a modest profit.

-- Thomas M. Terashima (tom@nucleus.com), January 06, 1998.

(By the way, GWTW is short for "Gone with the Wind"...)

Adjusting for inflation is always tricky, especially over half a century. (See my new question.)

-- Thomas M. Terashima (tom@nucleus.com), January 13, 1998.

I believe it is around $425 Million when you figure in all of the things you mentioned. That is why they said it would have to make that much to break even. It looks as though it will. It has made about $160 Million so far in The U.S. and Canada and doesn't show signs of slowing down yet.

-- Brian Knatchbull (kermit@interlog.com), January 04, 1998.

With the latest figures coming through, now over $200,000,000 at this writing, and no end in sight, I think we can safely assume they will recoup their costs. What will be interesting to see if they can equal "GWTW" in adjusted gross figures of about $874,000,000. It appears they have a shot.

-- Richard Wendt (rlwpaw4487@aol.com), January 13, 1998.