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Movies => Bad Movies => Topic started by: Pacman000 on September 27, 2017, 02:20:41 PM



Title: B (or Z) Movie Budgets
Post by: Pacman000 on September 27, 2017, 02:20:41 PM
B-movie budgets, adjusted for inflation.

I've been wondering for awhil how much it would cost to make a movie. Not a big tent-pole film, but any movie, a minimal quality-doesn't-matter-let's-just-make-it B-Movie. So I looked up a few old B-films on Wikipedia, got their budgets, and ran them through an inflation calculator:

The Beast with a Million Eyes (Released 1955, Directed by Rodger Corman)
1955 Budget: $33,000
Today: $300,138.09
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=33000&year1=195501&year2=201701

The Blob (1958, Irvin Yeaworth)
$110,000
Today: $933,996.15
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=110%2C000&year1=195801&year2=201701

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959, Ed Wood)
$60,000
Today: $502,425.52
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=60%2C000.00&year1=195901&year2=201701

The Raven (1963, Corman)
$350,000
Today: $2,795,843.75
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=350%2C000.00&year1=196301&year2=201701

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964, Ray Dennis Steckler)
$38,000
Today: $298,636.96
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=38%2C000.00&year1=196401&year2=201701

The Eye Creatures (1965, Larry Buccanan)
$40,000
Today: $311,332.05
https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=40000&year1=196501&year2=201701

Some of these (The Blob, The Raven) aren't exactly no-budget stinkers, but even the "no-budget" films cost a ton of money; often as much as a nice house in the Midwest United States. Film making is expensive; you're not going to create a movie for $50, even if comedians think that's the standard budget for these movies.


Title: Re: B (or Z) Movie Budgets
Post by: Ted C on September 28, 2017, 09:04:11 AM
The Evil Dead (1981, directed by Sam Raimi)
Cost in 1981: ~$350,000
Cost in 2017: ~$945,000


Title: Re: B (or Z) Movie Budgets
Post by: Ted C on September 28, 2017, 01:27:58 PM
Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996, directed by S. S. Wilson)
1994 budget: $4,000,000
2017 budget: $6,627,000