Film is an important art form and the most popular form of entertainment. A large number of movies are released every day around the world because it is a profitable market to make money. In order to make money, an initial expense is required, and you hope to make a lot of money from it. However, a large investment does not always guarantee a huge return. Some films continue to make box office history and have a long-term impact, while others fail to live up to their hype and expectations and prove to be bombs at the box office.
Because of its global reach, Hollywood movies have always been films made with huge sums of money. The 1990s crossed two landmark budget thresholds — True Lies crossed the $100 million milestone and the Titanic crossed the $200 million mark. Since then, as visual effects have been used more and more, the salaries of the cast and crew, story rights, and other production costs have become higher, and a large number of films with budgets of more than $200 million are being produced.
The following films are listed in order of budget increase, inflation adjustment, and year of release.
1. Pirates of the Caribbean: The End of the World (2007) – $338 million
The third film in the Pirates of the Caribbean series is the most expensive film to date. The film was directed by Gore Verbinski, who was also the director of the first two films. The film retains the previous cast of stars, including Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kayla Knightley and Jeffrey Rush. The plot shows Will Turner, Elizabeth Swann, and Hector Barbosa rescuing Captain Jack Sparrow from the end of the world, before preparing for the east India Trading Company's army led by Cutler Beckett and David Jones. Received mixed reviews, the film remains popular, earning more than $960 million.
2. Titanic (1997) – $291 million
Titanic is one of the best films of all time, directed and co-produced by David Cameron. It's an epic romantic disaster movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, who, despite belonging to different social classes, fall in love aboard the ill-fated Titanic. Despite the negative press, the film achieved critical and commercial success, grossing $1.84 billion at the box office and maintaining its highest-grossing film of all time for 12 years. The 3D re-release brought the total collection to $2.18 billion, making it the second film to break the $2 billion mark. Cameron won 11 Oscars for the film, becoming the "King of the World" at the Academy Awards, tied with Ben Hur for the most single film awards.
3. Spider-Man 3 (2007) – $290 million
The third and final film in the wildly popular Spider-Man series, directed by Sam Remy, starred Toby Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco, Thomas Harden Church and Tover Grace. The film details the chronicle of Spider-Man as an alien entity causes inner turmoil in Peter's life while he fights three villains— the new Goblin, Sandman, and Venom. The presence of three villains pushes up the cost of making visual effects.
4. Magic Edge (2010) – $278 million
Trolls is a fantasy animated film based on the German fairy tale Rapunzel. Produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, it took six years to produce and is the most expensive animated film ever produced. It tells the story of a princess with magical long hair who manages to escape the confines of her isolated towers and discovers the outside world for the first time.
5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) – $272 million
The sixth installment of the famous Harry Potter series was directed by David Yates and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. Based on J. K. Rowling's novel of the same name, the film tells the story of Harry in the sixth grade at Hogwarts, where he discovers a mysterious old book and provides insight into the past of his nemesis, Voldemort. The film is considered one of the best films in the series and is known for its cinematography.
6. WaterWorld (1995) – $264 million
Starring and co-producing commercial and critical bulletproof Kevin Coster, the film was a synonym for the term "box office bomb" before John Carter. The budget surged to $172 million, largely because it was filmed in a man-made seawater enclosure off the coast of Hawaii. In the post-apocalyptic future, when all the polar ice sheets melt, a mutated sailor acts as the savior of a woman and a young girl, searching for drylands. After taking into account the sale of videos and other movies, it just managed to break even.
7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) – $261 million
The fantasy adventure film, ranked second in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, became so popular and well known that the film went on to become one of the top ten grossing films of all time and the fastest to gross $1 billion at the time. The film begins with Johnny Depp, who plays the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow, Orlando Bloom, and Kayla Knightley. The film begins where the first film stops, where Wiltner is hunting down Jack Parro to retrieve his magic compass, which in turn is behind The Heart of David Jones. If Jack is to avoid being enslaved by Jones, he must recover Jones' body and mind. The film received four Oscar nominations and one for Best Visual Effects.
8. Avatar (2009) – $258 million
This epic sci-fi film starring Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana is directed, written, co-produced and co-edited by James Cameron. Development of the film began as early as 1994 and was scheduled for release in 1999, but Cameron believed that the lack of necessary technology was the reason for the inability to justly realize his views on the film. The film opens with positive reviews and has been praised for its groundbreaking visuals. The film is set in Pandora, a distant habitable satellite where Marines on mission find themselves at odds with people on Earth and decide to stand with the local tribes. The film won 3 Academy Awards, including one for Best Visual Effects. It broke all box office records and became the highest grossing all time, grossing $2.78 billion.
9. John Carter (2012) – $254 million
John Carter, seen as a box office bomb, was directed by Andrew Stanton, produced by Walt Disney Pictures, and adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs' The Princess of Mars. John Carter died mysteriously and left the diary for his nephew to read. The magazine tells the story of Carter as a Civil War veteran who was accidentally transported to Mars, where he was imprisoned by a local 12-foot-tall beast. He falls in love with a princess from a foreign country and tries to save her.
10. King Kong (2005) – $247 million
Directed and co-produced by Peter Jackson, the 2005 film remakes the 1933 film of the same name. Starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrian Brody and Andy Serkis, the film set the most expensive film of its time for $207 million. Set in the 1930s, an ambitious filmmaker takes his cast and crew to the mysterious Skull Island, where they meet King Kong, the giant ape who is captivated by the heroine. With the ape-man captured and brought back to New York City with disastrous consequences, the love story between Beauty and the Beast develops further. It grossed more than $550 million worldwide and won 3 Academy Awards – Best Sound Editing, Best Mix and Best Visual Effects.