10 Things You Didn't Know About The Hobbit Trilogy
4. The Trilogy Cost Twice As Much As The Lord Of The Rings
Its fair to say that, despite some understandable initial reservations from the moneymen behind the project, Jacksons first Middle-earth trilogy represented good business. The directors plan to shoot all three movies back to back was an unprecedented undertaking that required an official outlay of $281 million, while independent estimates posit that the trilogys final budget pushed $330 million. Tack on marketing costs in the region of $200 million and what you have is one of the biggest gambles in moviemaking history. In hindsight, the films were cheap at the price. Close to three billion dollars in global box office receipts, not to mention the bounty reaped from merchandising, DVD sales, Blu-ray box sets and Extended Editions, was evidence enough of a clear-cut home run, so there was considerably less deliberation when Peter Jackson confirmed his intention to direct The Hobbit films. Nevertheless, its a good thing the Bilbo-centred films are enjoying a comparable level of box office success. According to documents filed in New Zealand over a year ago, production costs were already in the region of $561 million before April 2013. Factor in months of additional filming, digital effects work carried out in the interim and ever-rising marketing costs and its clear that The Hobbit films profitability wont come close to that of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. In that $380,000 was reportedly spent on coffee alone, so its a good thing that the first two films have taken home an average of almost a billion dollars apiece.
I watch movies and I watch sport. I also watch movies about sport, and if there were a sport about movies I'd watch that too. The internet was the closest thing I could find.
