10 INSANE Reasons Movies Were So Expensive
6. It Was Rushed Through Production - Lethal Weapon 4
To look at Lethal Weapon 4, you'd never guess its budget skyrocketed to an obscene $150 million - a figure almost double the combined budgets of the first three films in the series. Just let that sink in.
As for how the sequel cost so much? Development burned through numerous writers and countless script drafts, but the big factor was time.
Warner Bros. wanted to have a sure-fire box office smash hit ready to commemorate their 75th anniversary, and saw Lethal Weapon 4 as the most viable prospect.
And so, the production paid top dollar to speedily secure Mel Gibson's involvement, paying him a stonking $30 million alone, before ambitiously/foolishly starting to shoot the film just six months before its July 1998 release date.
Moreover, shooting began without a finished script, causing filming to drag on until May, just two months before Lethal Weapon 4 was set to open.
This led to an extremely rushed post-production process which naturally proved infinitely more expensive than usual.
And while the film's monstrous budget impacted its bottom line, the fact that it released to mixed reviews and grossed a not-bad $285.4 million is honestly nothing short of a miracle.